10/23/2025, and the time is 5PM. This is a regular monthly board meeting of the Keller ISD Board of Trustees. All trustees are present. It's my understanding, miss Erickson is stuck in traffic and is on her way. So, for the purpose of this, we will count her present. Ready for the pledge. Bryce. Please rise on the pledge of allegiance. Here to lead us in the pledges are some of the outstanding students from Ridgeview Elementary School. Immediately following the pledges, principal Justin Henning will come to the podium and introduce his students.
Good. I'll just say a couple things about these kids. They are all were nominated by our teachers on campus as to be representatives for you tonight. They each of them are in their house shirts that represents the characteristic that we try to strive for on a daily basis on top of honoring our country. So Nora Irwin and the Miranda children who are Hudson, Reagan, and Logan, wave everybody. All three of them. Right? And then Keller, Sherra, Lucille Stewart, Leila Love, and Holt Henig. Thank you, children, for being here.
You'll be a good job. We now do the prayer. Vice President Washington. Heavenly Father, we come to you tonight asking for your guidance and strength. Give us wisdom to make the right decisions. Help us all come together to support our schools and the children we serve. May your hand of peace and provision be upon them all. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen. Thank you. Ready for the awards. Bryce. Alright. In your board packet, you'll find student staff achievements on pages three and four. Photos will be taken directly following each award inside the boardroom in front of the backdrop in the 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 personal photos outside in our courtyard following the awards portion of the agenda. All official photos taken inside the border will be shared via the Keller ISD Facebook page. For our first award tonight, I'd like to invite Trustee Rankleve down to our latest Hard at Work Employee of the Month. This month's recipient was nominated by Director of Safety and Security, Michael Hoffman, and members of his team who shared the following. Monica is truly the heart of the Keller ISD Safety and Security Department.
She is the glue that holds our team together and the backbone that keeps our operation running smoothly. Whether it's scheduling, purchasing, creating, and issuing badges for the entire district, Monica does it all with professionalism, warmth, and a willingness to help anyone who walks through the door. Her impact extends far beyond our department. Monica is often the first point of contact for staff, parents, contractors, and vendors, always delivering the highest level of customer service and ensuring everyone feels valued and heard. She seamlessly handles everything from covering the front desk and attending meetings to working at
football games, all while keeping our 50 plus team members on track. Monica's meticulous attention to detail, calm presence under pressure, and proactive approach are what set our team up for success. When security related issues arise, Monica remains composed, professional, and committed to finding solutions. Monica's dedication, tireless efforts, and positive spirit truly embody the Keller ISD Hard at Work values. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me congratulate our October 2025 Keller ISD Hard at Work Employer of the Month, KISD Safety and Security Specialist, Monica Lamos.
Just a reminder to employees to keep those submissions rolling in. Nominate coworkers for Hard at Work Employee of the Month by visiting www.kellerisd.net/hawand filling out the You've Got Heart online form. Next, I'd like to ask Trustee Kelly to join employee engagement coordinator Jennifer Love to celebrate our latest HR staff recognitions. And Trustee Erickson isn't here yet. Trustee Coker, would you mind joining us at the, photo bag drop, for a few photos? As always, I am so excited to honor our quarterly FACE Award winners. The FACE Award celebrates operational staff members that provide friendly above and beyond customer service
excellence. These three staff members exemplify excellence through dedication and heart in everything that they do. They go above and beyond to keep our campuses running smoothly, always stepping in whenever needed with a smile and a positive attitude, all while making a lasting impact on our students, staff, and school community. We're excited to recognize our three winners for this quarter. First step, Christy Beaver, who works in child nutrition at Kelleher Harpool. Gerald Carranza is the head custodian at Trinity Springs Middle School. And Shane O'Bannon is a general pair technician.
Congratulations again to all of our winners. Thank you. Alright. And for our final award this evening, may I please have Doctor. Wilson and Board President Burt come forward to help us recognize our latest Keller ISD Star Educator Award winner. This month's recipient is a math teacher at Trinity Springs Middle School. She was nominated by TSMS Assistant Principal Colton Cox who shared the following. Ms. Dorey exemplifies the Building Thinking Classrooms model through her use of vertical whiteboards, kinesthetic learning, and strategies like de fronting the classroom and randomizing groups to foster critical thinking and
engagement in math. Her commitment to student growth is evident not only in her innovative teaching, but also in her daily lunch and learn tutorials and willingness to dedicate her own time to help students. She's described as a star educator who embraces new methods and goes above and beyond for her students. Let's learn a little bit more about a winner in this brief video. I mean, I've been teaching for longer than these kids' parents have been alive practically, for twenty eight years. But part of what I aim to do is get better and improve every year, every day, every period. And building thinking classrooms when I read about it, I just thought, this makes sense.
This is better than what I've been doing. It's a research based model of getting kids up and thinking. And I love it because the kids are up, they're talking, they're communicating, they're working together, they're thinking, which is a main goal of mine. When she does, like, group work, we're helping each other. We're all a community in this class. It's like, we're teaching each other. It's not like she's just telling us what to do and how to learn. It's like we're learning in our own ways at the boards. These kids are super busy. They're in choir, they're in theater, they're in band, they're in football, they're in athletics,
they're here in the building at lunch. So I do lunch and learn, which is basically a a lunchtime tutoring. They eat. We go over math questions while they're doing it. It's it's a great opportunity to get more individualized help than they would in class. I love to come to the lunch and learns, like, as often I can, because it really helps you, like, you learn straight from them. It's really sweet that she gives up her free time to, like, help us learn. Well, I love teaching middle school. For me as a teacher, I think that's exactly where I'm supposed to be. I have fun with the kids. I have middle school humor myself now, and I just enjoy it.
And I think that's important to help kids learn. These kids are not gonna have to know linear equations when they grow up, but they're gonna need to be able to think. That's what I want them to leave here with is just how to be better every day, how to be a lifelong learner, and how to think. Ladies and gentlemen, please help me congratulate this month's Keller ISD Star Educator Award winner, Trinity Springs Middle School math teacher, Carolyn Doherty. Thank you Carolyn for implementing the latest classroom strategies and going above and beyond for our young learners. As a winner, Carolyn will receive $500 to spend on her classroom.
Congratulations. Alright. We'll move into, a quick board president's update followed by the superintendent's update. Thanks for all to for all of you for being here and and for watching online. I wanna take a moment while we are still in principals appreciation month to recognize all of our campus principals. They work tirelessly and do a phenomenal job ensuring that all of our campuses remain safe, learning environments for educators, staff, students, and all the volunteers. On behalf of the board, thank you for everything you do.
I also wanna call out our amazing students who continue to represent KISD so well at various events and competitions. I do wanna mention an individual whose endeavors have global implications. Senior, Keller High School senior Cole Keninger and his team won a gold medal while he was pitching for Team USA at the Baseball World Cup championship in Japan. We look forward to recognizing him and all of our other outstanding students at future board meetings.
Following the discussion last week on recess, increasing recess, on our campuses. Please report that the district has made some adjustments that doctor Wilson will speak to in a little bit. The SHAC committee is also currently reviewing, this as well considering a positive impact on on student well-being and academic performance. There I can't tell you how many great things are going on around this district and I would encourage everyone to check out the news and events section of the district district website.
Lastly, I wanna share that following the CHAC meeting on November 3, officer Tim Aldrich, Keller PD, will host a substance abuse forum for all parents from six to seven right here in the boardroom. Thank you. Doctor Wilson. Thank you, mister Burt. A couple of things that I would say. First of all, I'd echo, what mister Burt said. Echoing, that's right. So I would echo what mister Burt said. But, so we have a great group of principals and we're very, very fortunate in
this district to have them. I was able to get out on three campuses just the other day, had a few minutes, I thought I need to get out, I need to see what's going on. It's always a great problem when I walk in and the front office tells me, I don't know where they are. They're out in the building somewhere. And that's a great thing to have because when I find them, they're working with teachers or they're working with kids. And, it gives me confidence every time I have a conversation, every time I see those kids and their teachers and their principals, knowing that our kids, my son, your
your kids, your kids are in good hands because, we have great administrators on our campus. So, thank you, principals, for all that you do. We've also received some questions regarding the impact of the federal shutdown, on KISD. So I just wanted to take a few minutes and clarify any, points and to alleviate hopefully alleviate some of those concerns. So to date, there has been no impact of funding. Federal funds, just so you know, pay for special education, language acquisition staff, programs, school
lunches, for students who qualify for federal meal reimbursement, and initial service for for disadvantaged students. Any gap in funding, if there were to be one, would affect us. That is fair to say. However, we believe federal funding is going to continue for at least the next few months, whether the government will let us or not, because that was the big chunk of funding that came through this summer. We had the conversation about, some of the funds being held up. Those are all released to TEA to Texas, so the state has those funds.
They should be pushed out, for the next few months. Kristen Kristen and and her team, are are ready to go. If they were not, we we prepared for that last year, when we were talking about some of the funding being held up. So we're good for the next few months at least. Here's what I will also make sure that our folks know. So our newest kids are special education students or students with special needs. Those regardless of funding, those kids will be taken care of. We will meet those needs.
They have IEPs that state exactly what we're allowed to do by law, and we will meet those regardless of whether we have federal funds or not. So our special education parents, I don't want them to worry because we will we will take care of their kids. Also wanted to update and thank Doctor. Hood and our elementary principals. They responded really quickly, and made some good changes to the recess AR that we talked about last, last meeting. Kevin Kevin being a researcher with Kevin as went back over and just the fact
of of changing it to a wet bulb temperature instead of a a real field, the site we were using was outdated. We felt that the data wasn't useful for us, we could get accurate data. And so we switched over to pocket perry berries. Interestingly, MAF National Weather Service and a couple of other outlets are moving and providing data on wet bulb temperature, because that's that's, heat risk and the effects of heat on the body. And so we made the change to move away from wheeler fuel or, heat index
into, wet bed, but I think there was over a two week span. Quite a few of those two weeks would we would not have gone out of the old system and it was every day we would have gone out of the new one. And so I did some playing around with it. I looked south, to some of the areas that are still within our own corpus and we feel one day, we'd be looking at the data, was about 98. The wet bulb was in the seventies, so our students would have gone out that day. So we feel that that's a good positive change, but I do appreciate that the
doctorhood and the elementary principal and stuff. Being able to flip that line and to get that going as well. I hope you guys, like like Mr. Bird said, get a chance to go watch Cole play baseball. I've watched him over the last couple of years and it's pretty phenomenal, what he's able to do on the field. And so, I know the the team I'm really proud of him as well as the community. That is oh, one other thing that I would that I would say. The other night I'd shared with our with our board of trustees, it was a little bit we had an issue with the water main over at Betty Pearl and,
our grounds team, Jerry, maintenance, Dustin, that whole crew just did a they did a great job of addressing that, but addressing that in a way that still allowed us to have school. So we had a leak and a water main coming into the building. They were able to identify the leak, ensure that it was gonna hold through the next day. They had 55 gallon drums of water ready just in case. They had bottles of water ready to go just in case. And then once the screw went out the next day, they fixed it.
There's a Dustin sent me a picture of some gentleman. He was so far down that hole I could barely see him and it was really muddy. And so those, those guys do a great job. It just shows you how much work and how much effort, just as we we added our our our face, award winners this evening. It takes a lot of folks. It takes a lot of people to take care of kids, and, we have those folks in KIIST. So, congratulations to Dustin and his crew. Really, really appreciate our work. Real quick, John.
I think it's important to note for the record that trustee Erickson has is present now. Thank you. And we noted. That you can fight through the traffic to, to make it here. Let's see. So now moving to, the beginning of the rest of our meeting, I'd like to highlight the school board meeting protocol. Any violations to these expectations, could 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 dais, at any time during the 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 civilly and with respect. Individuals who wanted to speak were required to sign up before the meeting, pursuant to board policy, BED local. The amount of time each speaker receives may be adjusted for meeting management.
As we had 11, members of the community sign up, 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 remaining. Each speaker will be speaking from the stand alone microphone to your left. In order for speakers to hear when they are called and to be heard, we ask the audience members refrain quiet and respectful, for 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, would you call the first speakers? First, we'll have, Richard Gottlieb, followed by Dalena Hambrick Barsanti. Are we good? Is the microphone working? Perfect. Good? Okay. I wanna talk about two things today. The first is the house bill about moving elections to November. We as a district have some infrastructure that's going to need some care in the near future, most likely, if the state of air conditioners or anything is any indication. Given that, we're probably gonna need some bonds to fund those repairs.
Bonds are about twice as likely to pass during May elections than November elections. You have some time to make this decision. If you want to move elections to November, because I do understand there's better turnout for those elections, I would urge you to consider waiting until after maybe we've passed some bonds so we have more likelihood of passing those bonds and benefiting our schools. The second thing that I wanna talk about is the prayer and religious text policy. I wanna thank Trustee Kelly for asking for consideration about this. I read the sample policy and I'm concerned there might be a implication that wasn't
thought of when we voted this policy to be voted on. So we have to pass a policy regarding having a specific time for prayer and religious text reading. Reading the policy, at the bottom it says that this policy will not limit that on campus outside of the designated time. That implies that during the designated time, there is a limitation on prayer and religious text reading. And I just am worried that that's going to have some implications on students with things like See You at the Pole that happens before school. I don't think see you at the pole happens inside of a room inside the
campus, right? It's outside. Is that going to be allowed? Because it's probably going to be during that time when students are supposed to be confined to a room to have their prayer and religious text reading time. Another thing that I'm concerned about is if a student has a friend who's going through something tough and they want to pray with that friend, do they have to then escort them into that room before school? Or can they pray in the hallway? Because I think based on the policy they wouldn't be allowed to pray in the hallway in sight of other people who haven't signed up for this. And so I'm just worried that with this policy we're actually putting limitations on what
students can do as a religious practice inside the school, and I'm afraid that's an unintended consequence. So again, trustee Kelly, thank you for asking for more time to consider this because I do think that there might be some unintended consequences because I don't think that's what y'all were hoping to have happen when you said, Yes, we want to have a time for religious activity in the school. I don't think that you were thinking that it might actually limit what students are able to do inside the school building. So I just ask that you consider both those things as you're talking about tonight. Thank you very much. Delana Hebert Barsanti followed by Denise Powell. Good evening.
Honesty, integrity, transparency. A few of you seated before me actually know the meaning of these words and you try to apply them to each facet of your life. But to the majority, they're just buzz words. Words you put on a campaign sign and on your patriot, minimum members. Many fell for your glossy ads and slick talk, but the bell has been lifted. Many of us see you for what you are and for what you are not. You're not honest. You show no integrity and you have to hide your meetings and deeds and secrecy. This is the furthest thing from transparent. Even after you're caught red handed trying to split this district apart, you continue to
perpetuate a false narrative. You cry about state funding and yet you waste millions on a private attorney. Not to mention the millions blown concocting your dastardly plan to oust 70% of students and families from this district. You have an opportunity to be transparent but refuse. A seated trustee has repeatedly asked you to have the RFQ placed on the board meeting agenda but the great and powerful Oz has denied him every time. Why is that? If you're so honest, if you have so much integrity, then certainly you have nothing
to hide. What are you afraid of? Here's a direct quote from one of your own. This is the consequence of having Jennifer and Randy elected. Each trustee gets a say on who's on these committees. The long range planning committee is the one I'd be the most worried about. So you are afraid. You're afraid of new faces and new voices. You're afraid that the jig is up and you will no longer have free reign. You're afraid your sins will find you out and you will be held accountable. I find it humorous that several of you didn't think it was important enough to
turn your committee lists on time or if you turn them in at all. But yet you're worried about new people wanting to come and be a part of the talks and the conversations in this district. Do your father know that? So I get it you're afraid and you should be. Denise Powell followed by Brandon Bubick. Good evening. I'm excited about the new community, committees and hope that they are a signal to a stronger district partnership. We truly need one. As recent policies have unfortunately made communication more difficult for parents, teachers, and admins, when
we should be focused on making it easier. On the topic of changing our election date to November, I urge you to keep our elections in May. Campaigning and onboarding new members in November would directly conflict with critical start of school periods. Summer onboarding, as we do now, is far more effective for a smooth transition, even with state budget timing decisions and start of year disruption is too great if we move it to November. If you must change the cycle, I ask that you honor the terms voters elected,
hold the next May elections as scheduled, and let the new terms be the ones that end in November. This gives our district and community time to adapt. It would give us an opportunity to get maybe some bombs through that our district desperately needs. Finally, regarding the local policy for SB 11 on prayers in school, I ask that you please add language to the draft that explicitly states an employee's decision to opt in or out will have no impact on their employment.
This is a reasonable and critical, protection for our staff. Thank you. Brandon Bubick followed by Barbara Brewer. Good evening. I wanted to talk to y'all tonight about the proposed changes to the election. This is a common sense this is a common sense move. We hear often a lot about how there's voter turnout, a low voter turnout. Moving the elections to November will increase voter turnout. This makes sense for our district. If we hear in the community that there is a need for a greater sense
of voters to be there, you have a fiduciary responsibility as trustees as well to look at the cost of our elections. Moving the elections from May to November has a potential to save this district money. It does not matter that if bonds may not pass because voters say no, it is more important that voters have a chance to vote. And if they are more likely to vote in November versus May, you have the
obligation to change that now that it's now that you have the opportunity under this law. So I encourage you to set aside any differences, set aside any emotion that there is. All of you will now have an extra six months. You need to set aside that. This should be a seven-zero decision. Talk about this. Find out what the potential changes would be in our fiduciary in your in the cost of elections. But this is something that you should have as a unified trustee decision.
This should not be something that is partisan. This is not something that should be looked at as a four three or a five two. This should be seven zero. Thank you. Barbara Brew followed by Rachel Jeans. I have to agree with Brandon. It could save money. We talked about that yesterday at the polls. I get that moving the election might save some money, but the timing of this just doesn't feel right. We need to research how this change could affect future bonds and how it could affect the elections. I respectfully ask the board to table this item until after the upcoming elections because
so that we can have to ensure transparency and public trust because we don't trust you. Rachel Jenkins followed by Jessica Z. Hi. I just wanted to bring up, two main points. Again, talking about moving the elections. I, we have a lot of time to decide this. I think I just reread the bill. It looks like we have until 2030 to decide on this. And I would ask that you respectfully, keep in mind that we voted all of you guys in for three for three years, not three and a half years.
So considering, changing it to, three years out in the sense that that gives all of you guys your your three years that we elected you for and that moving forward, the next people we'd be electing would get, you know, one one person I guess a couple would get three and a half years, but we would know. Sorry. We would know that. Just kind of keep that in mind as you mull over the bill. I do agree that it could save money, thousands of dollars. It's not cheap during elections, but, are we stepping over pennies? Sorry, are we stepping over dollars to collect pennies?
Because while we may save thousands of dollars in the short term, if we can never pass a bond again and the state continues to fund our school districts, we're gonna be in a lot of pain. You guys know. You you know the numbers. You you're, lower that the state doesn't really seem to prioritize, public education at this point in time. My other question is, I would love to hear addressed why Tim Davis gets so much special treatment. Why is he not held to the same standards of, needing three quotes to get
to to approve something? Why why is he always given the job? Has he proven, like, in from our perspective, it doesn't look like he's proven himself a very good lawyer and except for the fact that he creates problems that makes him more money. So I'm just wondering why the rules don't apply to him, why do we not have an RFQ, why do we not have a scope of work, things of that nature. And I've, sent this email to, mister Burt after the last board meeting about how
Tim Davis is allowed to sue Ken, our general attorney, in the name of our district when he only represents the school board. It's been very clear from the very beginning that he only represents the school board so why does he have the authority to say in the Keller ISD name that. That he's assuming can pack someone we as a district want to see those invoices. That's all I had thanks. Jessica Zee followed by Nikki Perez. Good evening, board members. I didn't appear tonight to be a judge, a jury, or an executioner.
I'm not here to chastise any member of the board. Excuse me. Jessica, can you speak up just a little bit? Should I start over? Is it no? Okay. Where did I lose you? Okay. I myself am not perfect and I make mistakes. However, it's not who I am but whose I serve and I can repent for anything as can any of you board members. There is no need for outburst or anger that originates in the heart not because of circumstances. The board bestows awards and teachers to teachers who have gone above and beyond what is expected of them and you yourself have recognized students for their perseverance in academics
and extracurricular activities. On that note, I would like to bring to your attention the following people at KCAL, Mr. Bodie Carroll, Ms. Debbie Schneeman, and Mr. Justin Walker, as well as their assistants. They have spent countless hours planning for the October mock interviews and they went very well. Also, there are many teachers at KCAL who consistently mentor their students to achieve specific goals in their journey to be assets in our community as well as the business world. I believe I speak for not only myself but other interviewers when I say that
students exhibited honesty, professionalism, high levels of integrity, and ambition. Thank you board members for ensuring that we have SROs at KISC campuses. These officers bring peace into chaotic classrooms, a sense of balance to hallways, and comfort to teachers and subs, and yes students. While KISD students may disagree and not be thrilled with officers on their campuses, they appreciate knowing that somebody truly cares and it's not just a paycheck. Two years ago, our son's car broke down at Central High School.
He called me and said I'm in trouble. Two SROs came out of Central, a man and a woman respectively. The, adults were yelling at him from their from their cars saying get out of the way, move your car. The SROs came out and defused the situation. They responded to anger with calmness and it all worked out. And might I add that a man stopped and towed my son's car to our home. Admit all this this crazy chaos. That is a servant's heart. That is somebody that does it out of pure love. In closing, I want to thank the board members who have endured the onslaught of
darkness, words that have never been spoken should never been spoken to a fellow human being whether you are Christ follower or not and say it on the course of what they should be doing to the best of their ability. Paul the Apostle said following in his letter to the church of Ephesus who was struggling that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. That prayer, KISD board members, is for you. Thank you. Nikki Perez followed by Lindsay Lovell.
Hello. Good evening. Well, I'm going to talk on something a little bit lighter. I am I will say I do back what Brandon said on on voting. So but I would actually like to talk on the unification of our mascots for our feeder patterns. I know that Chelsea with Fossil Ridge, you have that with the Panthers. I was always raised that to be better, you look at who is doing better than you and so whether you agree with us or don't disagree, I think it's facts. As we look at Southlake Carroll and how the mascot brings the community together, and
you go into Southlake, you go into every store, and it's either got red or I'm sorry, green and black or it has the dragon emblems, and I think that everyone coming into the town for football games, like, you can feel the buzz, like, it's just a great thing that I think that we can absolutely do here in KISD, and I know it's hard because we're such a large district, and so I think that bringing each of our feeder patterns and really making our each high school's mascot, the center for what brings us together for our kids and coming together, to
watch their football games and being unified. You look at kids going into kindergarten and they come in I'm gonna say Indian because I'm Keller, so but each feeder pattern, and they start their day their kindergarten day as an Indian, and then they finish their last day of their senior year, as an Indian as well, and then they grow up and they want to come back and they want that experience for their kids and they're like, You get to be an Indian too, and they want to come back. I looked at that with Carol. I have a lot of friends, my husband went there, and they're multi generation and I want to see that for our Keller, ISD, and I think it's something that
absolutely can be done. I talk to a lot of parents, in our feeder pattern and a lot of people are very supportive of this. They really like the idea of bringing the unity into our community, and then also someone mentioned with the falcons, like, they were questionable because they had been a falcon and now their kids were, and I love that. That's history and that is great, but I also think that we could be a new legacy for this new tradition that would really unite us in a time that we are all so divided. I mean, I feel like we can all agree on that, and so any way
that we can look into this and really make a move to unite us together, I think it's a small thing but it's a greater thing in the long run than we can even imagine, so thank you. Lindsay Lovell followed by Catherine Woods. Hello. So I'm also here to talk about, unifying our mascots across the feeder patterns. I have two elementary age students, and I would love to see a shared mascot across Keller High School feeder pattern and others if that's something the community would be interested in. Like Nikki, I've talked to a lot of families and community members who are really
interested in unification, a greater sense of community, and school pride, which this could achieve if we had a shared mascot. I know we do have other schools that have, you know, Fossil Ridge has the same mascot and Central has some schools with the same mascot. So many of our children attend Keller High School sports camps and dance camps and the Indian Ed's camp, and that's when they start to get a sense of, a bigger school spirit. But I do think that this change could help our students feel a part of something bigger earlier and feel a more immediate connection with their schools as they start
to to transition to their next campus. And finally, I do think it would help maintain, long term loyalty and engagement from our community. And I do wanna add, I know Nikki feels the same, but we wouldn't expect to use district funds for this. I know money is very tight, but we would look for support and sponsorships and from our community to try and make these changes. Thank you. Catherine Woods followed by Jake Wilson. Good evening. I wanted to speak about the proposed prayer room policy and how it could unintentionally harm students rights rather than protect them. I've heard a lot about giving students time and space for prayer and I fully
support that they should be able to pray at by on their own as they have been doing. But I feel that there are students who will not be covered under this policy. The sample policy has the students being allowed to pray before school in a room. We have athletes who have to practice before school. If a basketball player makes an exceptional play and does a cross or says that one's for Jesus in light of other students whose parents do not want them to be part of the prayer room are we now crossing over on that student's right
to say what she said? It's not fair. Like if somebody were to object to her saying that she would now be outside of policy because she's been excluded from the room because she's at practice. So I just feel like our policy as it's written has been done hastily and there's not we had time for this. There's also a question of logistics and fairness. Our campus is going to be creating separate rooms for each religion. Our community has many Christian students. We also have students from other faiths or, we have are they going to be
all sharing one space and what happens if students are visiting other prayer groups or is that going to be allowed? From what I can see from the sample policy the parents just grant permission and the students go to the prayer room if they choose. As a parent I'm concerned, our faith, my faith for my family, encourages seeking knowledge, reading, and exploring truths from multiple sources. Some of these sources could be banned books in our district. So what if my student wants to read from a banned book in her prayer
room with her other students of faith. Is that okay? We're on school grounds. I'm I'm just asking for you guys to stop and think. It feels like we're rushing to pass something that sounds good on paper but it might create conflict and confusion with our campuses and with our students and cause them to feel like they should not be expressing themselves as they have been. I just want you guys to make a policy that is truly protecting religious freedom for every student. Thank you. Jake Wilson. Good evening, Keller ISD board and, members and doctor Wilson.
My name is Jake Wilson, and I support the senate bill we're having policy. Psalm one nineteen verse one sixty teaches us that the entirety of God's word is truth. My wife and I have been residents of Keller ISD for five years, and we live in the Fossil Ridge part of the district. Also, this last session, I took time off work to drive to Austin to testify in favor of Senate Bill 11 in both of the bill's committee hearings, so I'm very familiar with Senate Bill 11. Once people understand what Senate Bill 11 does, I would argue that just in terms
of expanding faith based education opportunities to more students, that between senate bill 11 and the school choice bill that senate bill 11 was actually the bigger bill of the two all along. Senate bill 11 expands faith based education opportunities not just to the 100,000 students who qualify for an ESA, but to all the other Texas students whose school boards and parents consent. This part is really important. Senator Silver Middleton, the author of Senate Bill 11, acknowledged on the record being committed
testimony that not just the Bible, but other Christian books such as devotionals and Christian apologetics books are included in this broader term other religious texts. So here's what that means. It means that if a Christian teacher wants to teach students during this designated time a book like William Strider's book Case for Christ that discusses the scholarly evidence for the resurrection of Jesus, then that teacher could gather consent forms online from the parents and Lee Strobel's book would qualify as an other religious text.
And if the district works with with the attorney general's office on this policy any and all legal costs would likely be covered by the state with no cost at all to the district. Some of the questions raised, section two of Senate Bill Levin says there's an absolute right for students to pray and Raya does not disrupt class. So, yes, kids would still be able to pray in the hall, but if it's with a staff member, then, it would be during this time, it was a subject to the policy. So let's say a Christian teacher sees that students are having trouble with motivation to
study for the STAR test and that teacher thinks the Bible study from Proverbs about the importance of hard work would help motivate these students. Or let's say the teacher notices bullying happening and wants to address that from a Christian perspective. If this policy passes, that teacher could get permission for the payments and be able to have those discussions during this designated time. This is important because teachers often have a first hand perspective of what's really happening in the classroom that others may not have. This draft is a good, start. I do think that it needs some more specifics.
While SB 11 specifies this time is for employees and students, I don't believe the bill is limited to meetings to just those two groups. I think you may need to address, parents and pastors wanting to attend. Thank you very much for supporting us. Thank you everyone. We'll now move into the, consent portion of our agenda. Oh, I'm sorry. We'll move into, reports. Doctor Wilson? Yes. So this evening we have a excuse me. We have a couple items in our academic update report that I would, like to
turn over to missus Price and, she will she will share those for us. Excuse me. As we're getting the PowerPoint up on the screen, I thought our the, it's a word, for our math teacher at Trinity Springs. She gave a great segue into one of the topics we're gonna talk to you tonight about, and it is called our lunch and learn.
And so, I'm going to be co presenting this evening with Suzanne McGaughey. She is our coordinator of advanced academics. So, I was excited to see that highlighted, so that's exciting. We were like, it's the lunch and learn. Okay. So this evening, I'm I'm excited to be here to talk about academics and curriculum and instructions, my favorite topic. So I am going to get started. So I'm here to talk to you about a couple of things tonight.
MAP is one of them. So in 2019, we piloted this assessment with about nine or 10 campuses. And the reason we did is we wanted an assessment that could help us look at growth. So we know we could look at achievement, but we wanted to start looking at growth. So we piloted this assessment in 2019 and we started to hear, I want I want to do this, I want to do this, and so we, the second year in 2020 during COVID, we implemented this full scale, so across all of our campuses.
So as a reminder, MAP is an online assessment, so students take this individually three times a year, beginning of the year, middle of the year, and end of the year. What is great, because MAP is, is given on a national scale, they have a very sophisticated, psychometric, very smart people that can analyze data on a very large scale, and one of the things that they do is they update the norms every five
years. So what that really means in in basic terms is they're really looking at cut points every five years. And so that's good for us that that we are looking at those, and that map updates updates that based on data that they're seeing. So this year, we're starting our new norm cycle. So what does that mean for us? When we look at map data, when new norms are established, we don't compare to the years behind us.
We start with the fall and we compare moving forward. So, that is just an interesting piece for the board to know. So I'll probably, hopefully, be back in January sharing information with you, comparing our beginning and middle of the year, test data. So what's great about MAP is growth can be tracked from test to test and year to year. MAP projects proficiency on STAAR and what this really benefits our campuses and the district with is we can begin to identify strengths and struggles in instructional areas by student,
by grade, by campus, and by the district. So in continuing with our MAP thinking, what questions that we get are what do students have to make on the test to score in a certain area? So it may surprise you that MAP looks at when students are answering about 50% of the questions correctly. So they determine that as a student's sweet spot for learning. So they're when a student starts to get about 50% of the questions correct, that's what MAP is looking for.
And based upon if a student's answering questions correctly, the questions get harder. If they're answering incorrectly, the level of rigor goes down, and so it's looking for that student's sweet spot. What's great about this test is growth as possible even for our highest of achieving students. So we know we wanna see a lot of growth with our, struggling students, and and there was more room to grow with our high performing students, even they can
make growth, and and we like to see that. And at the beginning of the year when we look at data in just a second, students are assessed on concepts they haven't seen yet, and so, teachers tell students before they take the test, you're gonna see questions that you may not know the answer to and that's okay. So as we have started this year, we're focusing on three things: structure, academic expectations, and accountability. One of the things that we're really working on with our campuses is alignment and
how we talk about data across campuses and across the district. So at the last principal and assistant principal meetings, we have rolled out what's called the Keller ISD data protocol, and we have modeled that with principals and assistant principals, during the October meetings. And some of those things, that that we're modeling with principals and assistant principals, they're taking back and leading, teacher PLCs or professional learning communities.
And here are the key things we're focusing on. So map as an example. We have data protocols for what is the data telling us? What does the data look like for our campus, for our grade level? What does it look like at the district? And we're trying to identify patterns without judgment. So what do we see in those patterns? And then we take those observations and how how can we use that data to make instructional actions and decisions? How can we commit to next steps and establish accountability?
And what are those, next steps of action steps? How are we gonna evaluate the progress? And how can we find our refine our instructional practices I'm going to use this example. So if you look at the bell curve, you'll see a I'm going to use this example. So if you look at the bell curve, you'll see a line that goes straight down the middle. And this is we can use the bell curve in talking about math.
And so half of the students perform to the right of that line that goes down the middle, half of the students perform to the left. So if you look at the bottom, these are the categories that when a student finishes taking MAP, they get a score. And they are performing in the low category, the low average, the average, the high average, and the high. And right below those categories, you'll see percentile ranks. So those are percentile rates that we can use to see the student is performing
in the eleventh percentile. We we know from that student score that they are going to need academic interventions and pretty substantial ones. So what does our data look like for beginning of the year? So this is our map data. We're gonna start at the top by looking at the district data. So if you remember, we looked at some colors. Red was low, low average, yellow's average, green let me remind myself, hold on high
average and high. And so you can see the percentage points that are in those bars for the district. So this is for students who are in grades k through eight that took a math map assessment at the beginning middle to September. So for reference, one of the things we do look at is what is the amount of percentage of our students in the red, what are the different categories, so
as a district in grades k through eight, our students are performing in the achievement of about the sixty eighth percentile, so So if you think about that bell curve, that's to the right of that bell curve. And then as a district in grades k through eight, where are students performing across those different levels? What you can see below that is students in kindergarten, first, second, third, and so on, where we shift from grade levels to courses.
I've talked to the board about, in middle school where we start to have varying levels of of courses. So our seventh grade math, we know that we have three different levels of math. Students may take seventh grade math. They may take accelerated. We also have our hybrid students, and so, we start to look at it by course, starting in middle school. And again, just a reminder, looking at that bell curve and where we were for the district. So reading, we're seeing, you know, similar patterns at the district level, sixty sixth percentile
to the right of that bell curve for reading, so this is kind of where we're starting for the year. Again, we look at, you know, how what are our students performing in their different performance categories, in kindergarten all the way through eighth grade. This is an important, reading. It's one that we really take a look at, for our students in kindergarten, because students are learning how to read. We're using, our phonics program that we adopted several years ago to teach students how
to read, and then again in middle school we start looking at the different courses that we're offering. So before I move on, I'm gonna talk about two other things, but I know MAP can be a lot to digest, So I wanted to pause for a minute and ask the board if there are any questions about map, that I have presented on or is there there you're something that you're wanting to ask me about map before I move on to the other two topics?
Yeah. Could you just remind me again, so this is good information. What we do for parents to kind of bring them on board so they understand what map is and then when they get the output and then shared with them that they can understand kind of where their student is and perhaps that they can then guide discussions with with their teachers? It's a great question. So map, I hope if I asked those of you that are parents on the board, if I said, have you ever heard of the family report? I would hope that you would also all say, yes, I have seen that.
Some yes, some I hope the answer is yes. So MAP does a really great job of creating a family report that is geared for every student, so it's personalized. So when my son takes math, the scores that I get are about how he performed on the math assessment. So, in our elementary, I'm looking for any elementary parents up here. So minor or have gone. Our elementary conferences, were held just before fall break, and teachers were discussing that.
We also, upload our map data into Aeries, which is our student information system, and so that can be found there as well. But I'm hoping that, our parents have received the map family report, which gives the the information for parents. It's a great question. Now I just wanna say that, personally, I love the map testing. Yes. I think it's phenomenal. It kinda meets every metric that we look for to make sure that, you know, teachers are doing their jobs well, kids are gathering and understanding and learning and growing
in a much more effectively. It's real time, and it's applicable to be used real time. Yes. So I think it's a phenomenal test. We should have started that a long time ago, and it should replace STAR altogether in my opinion. But We agree. Yeah. I'd be in favor of that with, replacing star with it. It is a helpful thing. So just, because it relates to a topic later on the agenda. This is an online test, and because of that, they do get the immediate feedback. Right? And they're able to have that conversation with the teacher. That's correct. So, I mean, it's it's a real time we see the date the data in
real time. So, when the student takes the assessment, we can see it on the screen. So the data I mean, for us as a district, the data disaggregates about every 24 hours, so, but we can look at individual students right then and there. Okay. And can you talk a little bit more about how you use it for goal setting both for the students but also in general for the teachers? You talked a little bit about it, but just maybe a little more. Sure. So, when we're looking at goal setting for students, math, kind of like STAR does
also, it breaks it down into math categories or reading categories. It might be fluency concepts or reading comprehension. So we can look at, okay, here's the student's overall score, and then here's how they're performing in these four categories for math or reading. And if if there's a a a difference in between those categories, we can say, alright. Numerical fluency, this is something we're going to work on with this student and helps with that goal setting. And when it's, given again at the mid year and the end of the year,
we can look at that progress along the way. So great question. And then in the math section, you mentioned the different levels, but it looks like there's a dip as you get into eighth grade. It looked like the numbers overall, I don't know if you can flip back, were were generally lower, like on this is what this is math. So is that a function of the hybrid and the acceleration, or is there anything that you would attribute that to being so much lower than the other grades? So if if we remember this goes back to our STAR conversation. Students who are in eighth grade, if they were in hybrid, they're taking geometry, which
is not reflected here. We also have students taking algebra one in middle or middle school. And and then we have students who are taking eighth grade. So I would I would say as an overall percentage, I would say over 50% of our middle school students take an advanced math course. So that means they're they're either taking algebra one or geometry in middle school. So that eighth grade is not reflective of every eighth grade student, if that makes
sense. That makes sense. And I Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry. I just have one more. Sure. In terms of the, two to one technology for the younger kids, I've heard I actually was on a campus one day when they were doing map testing and it was a bit of a dance to try to get it all to work. What did you see with that this fall in terms of how that impacted the MAP testing process since it is such an important process? So we in our k one and two, we moved to a, a class set of iPads at less than 20.
So last year, we were a one to one. And in kindergarten, first, and second grade, we moved to a class set, but not not an iPad for every student within the classroom. In grades third and up, they continue with the one to one. At the beginning of the year, we have struggled with because you don't have a class set, we did have to extend the window of map just to get all
of the students administered, just because they're working with not a full class set of iPads. If that am I answering the question? Yeah. So it just made it that it has to spend longer on the map testing. So did that eat it then into the instructional time or were they were doing other things So at the time frame? It had to extend so it might have taken a teacher because they didn't have a full set of iPads. It may have taken them two days to administer math and two day instead of
one day. So instead of them all doing it at the same time, they had to maybe split the class. Half did this, half did another. Yes. Okay. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Now some teachers did, like, move iPads around, so they might have taken some from this class and moved them to this, you know, to shuffle around. So we had some campuses that did that as well. Okay. Is that something y'all are talking about in, like, the principals' meetings about how to what worked best to take forward? Yes. It's it's been a while since we've had to work what?
Since we've not had a one to one. So, yes. Okay. We are trying to take and learn different strategies. So, as we continue throughout the year. So yes. Yes. Okay. Thank you. Uh-huh. Yeah. I just one last question because I remember us having this discussion in, I think, 2021 or 2022 when you brought, I guess, the the the one of the analysts from math. Yes. Yeah. And, just so folks know too, I mean, so there's, because that was one of the questions that we brought up. And my guess is as sample size has gotten better in terms of how to perform this Mhmm.
So we see good congruence between MAP output and how kids perform on STAR. Is that correct? Because I think this gets to the question that Jennifer brought up, which is at some point, we have discussions about what, assessments could look like. Right? If we think big, perhaps MAP could MAP could play a role. And so do do we see congruence with with map and star? So at the I would say at the district level, you may see a one point, two point variance in the are you talking about the projections for star? I mean, we see very close alignment.
Where you have to look at the alignment differently is for seventh and eighth grade because you can't you can't align sub you have to align it by, like, looking at the course projections versus the grade level. In their statistical study, they see about an 82% correlation rate, I mean, we see a pretty tight correlation. So you're welcome. This is, Jennifer, you had a great, presentation and maybe some other questions and comments.
Sure. This is, I mean, this is what we're all about, academic performance. That's right. And I know our friends in Austin, did not accept MAPS as the standard bearer, going forward. Instead, they have I'll just call it son of star. Yeah. Broken into three different pieces. So I'm sure you'll be looking at how that how that impacts us going going forward. But the the map, I agree with everybody on the on the dias. The map is a great a great tool. And my question is actually where I think you're gonna go here in your next slide, so I'll just hold back on that.
I've got two more things. I'm not finished. Well, the impact, but the question is so you can address it. And I wasn't sure what your Sure. Report was gonna actually look like is how we're using this information. We have it at the district level. Mhmm. Now we have campus level comps. Yeah. And particularly then how we're utilizing this information to address some of the, for lack of a better term, shortcomings or in our underperforming schools. That's right. That's exactly through our data protocol process. We're doing that same thing. So So if there aren't any more map questions I'll move oh, yes.
Let me have two things because this is this is the data and I I really enjoy the student data as these guys can attest. So this is just as a comparison what MAP does for us as opposed to what STAAR does for us. We have MAP data now and here's what I will say about beginning of the year MAP data. You're going to see more students at the lower end, so that that standard deviation two standard deviations to the left, so you're low and you're low average, because there's
nothing that that teacher did to affect those scores or that student's performance because it's the beginning of the year. That which you see is summer regression. So they leave at a higher level. They go home from the summer, don't read, don't do, don't engage in whatever activity, educational activity. They come back, there's about a six week regression and so we have to catch those students up on a six week period. So we also look at, and I will go back to when I worked with
the campuses directly, we would look at the low we would compare, how are we performing at that lower end, at the higher end, and I wanna see everything shift to the right. I wanna lower that red. I wanna lower that yellow. And I wanna grow that green, and I wanna grow that blue. And so that's the goal. That's your target. This is where MAP, for for our information, is far superior to STAR. STAR does not allow us to track that data over time nor does it allow
us to go in in a timely matter and go back and say, the students and I'll use my own child as an example. I can track his performance and I can look and say, you know, he's at this percentile and this percentile and this percentile, but then it tells me the areas that he did really well on and the areas he didn't do well on. So, algebraic reasoning was one for whatever reason was, his area that I then had to dig in and say okay what does that mean for a third grader?
What does that mean for a fourth grader? What does that mean for a fifth grader? And I could ask his teacher and we could get that information so I knew, okay, here's what we're dealing with. STAR doesn't do that. STAR doesn't allow us to go back and have those conversations and dig in and target something. Plus, this is this is, this is information that is that is intended to to be actionable and is intended to assist. It's not intended to evaluate.
Now, can we look at that and say why is why is this group of kids performing significantly lower than this group of kids and why is this group of kids not growing at the same rate as, their peer groups around them? Absolutely, we should. But, it's intended to be an instructional assessment used for for what what assessment was is truly supposed to be is to inform instruction and this allows us to do that. So, it's a great tool.
I'm glad we have it. I I I've taken my notes of family reports and educate parents on the data because that is important. If I just get a spray I know it because I'm in a I'm there but if you don't know what that information means, it's just another report. It's just another piece of paper that comes on the kit. And so, we'll we'll work on making sure that we're educating our families and so that they can they can take care of that as well. But, it's a great assessment. Alright. So I would like to continue on just to give the board an update on
Heritage Elementary. So if you remember back when we looked at accountability information, the state looks at title one campuses specifically. And if they fall, below a certain cut point, they identify the campus for, state required interventions, and heritage is that campus for Keller ISD. And so we the intent of this is just to give you an update on where we are and what we'll be doing this year.
So, we've been working with the principal, Kim Paul, to develop an intervention plan with, herself, the curriculum and instruction staff, the heritage teachers and we're working with region eleven. So the plan will be managed by the campus and it's monitored by the district. So doctor Rancleaf you gave a great piece of feedback to us last time about
communications to parents and, so we are working with our communications department so that we can, on a consistent basis, engage our parents. I think I've had some really beneficial conversations with some of you about what what questions can we post to parents on a weekly basis. Here are things to ask your kids when they come home, about what they're learning this week and how can parents help us, by reading with them and doing their homework.
And, so that is coming for our heritage elementary parents. Feedback on the plan is reviewed by the campus CEIC, by the staff leadership team, by the district, and this is a little crazy to me. TEA requires us to submit the plan in November, but the school board doesn't approve it until March. So it's it's kind of backwards. So we we are, we'll be submitting that plan, but I'm also here to to tell you what's in the plan so it's not a secret.
So our focus for, this improvement plan is instructional improvement, monthly teacher observation cycles, and feedback, professional learning communities where we're looking at data, we're talking about instruction, and, the the the next few lingo terms are really about a behavior management plan, at the
campus. So PBIS is positive, based instructional, positive behavioral instructional supports in classrooms, and it's through a model called CHAMPS. So here's what we'll be be doing in our first year. This is a two year plan that we will be working on. And so in September, the curriculum and instruction staff and, the campus staff attended a training at region eleven. The campus went through what's called an effective school framework diagnostic.
So region eleven came, spent a day and they did all kinds of observations throughout the campus and they give us feedback. And really what they're identifying is here you're if you're doing these things really well, you're gonna see academic gains. So one of that is behavior, that we're seeing positive behavior in classrooms and around the campus, and then observations of teachers giving feedback, and looking at data. So, in our plan, each teacher will receive monthly classroom visits and they'll have follow
ups from the campus administration. Our teachers, who have zero, one, or two years. They will receive more frequent visits and feedback. We'll be walking the campus on a regular basis with the principal. We have weekly data meetings that occur on Fridays, and region eleven will be visiting monthly to provide coaching for the administrative staff. The teachers, I talked about they'll receive feedback, it's important to know that feedback will
come within three days of the observation. So it's timely feedback, little bite sized nuggets for teachers, and then one of the things that we are going to do as a district is go through a math adoption. We haven't been through a math adoption in probably about ten years and so one of the things we are going to look at is, as y'all have heard me talk about when we looked at our phonics program, our reading program and our science program, we adopted programs or instructional resources that were called highly qualified instructional materials.
And that what that means is it's gone through a TEA vetting process that says, these curriculum this curriculum meets all of the highly qualified instructional components that should we should be using in our classrooms. And so we're going to be going through an adoption. We're gonna be starting it in November. I do want to calm any worries that you have that the cost of that comes from a fund that can only be used for district adoptions. So if you remember back for our reading and science discussions, it's called IMA, Instructional
Materials Allotment, and we can only use that money on things like this. So So we're going to end with our academic our advanced academic update, and I am going to turn it over to Suzanne McGahee. Good evening, I am the coordinator for advanced academics. This is my first year in this role. I've been with the district eleven years. Just a little bit of background. So I'm here to introduce a new initiative that I'm gonna have to talk to miss Daugherty about because she stole my name.
The advanced academics team is launching tomorrow a lunch and learn. This program was created to support our highest achieving middle school students, so this is grades seven and eight, strengthening the core academic and thinking skills that prepare them for success in advanced high school courses, as well as college readiness assessments such as the SAT. This program is also much more than just an academic preparation. The lunch and learn program is designed to give these students a sense of belonging and academic identity, a place where they can connect with their peers who share similar
goals and motivations. We want our top learners to see themselves as a part of a community of of scholars who support one another and push one another to grow. Students will meet 10 times a year every other Friday. So our first meeting is tomorrow. We plotted this out so that we avoided any testing windows, holidays, obviously, those kinds of things. They are meeting during their lunch period. Our advanced academics team will lead the sessions in collaboration with campus leaders. I've been working closely with all of the middle school principals.
By using the lunch period, we're able to provide enrichment without pulling students from their core classes or disrupting the school day. Our focus will be strengthening both math and ELA, arts yeah. English language art skills, specifically in the areas that align with advanced coursework and the SAT. Students will use Khan Academy SAT preparation materials, working on math content such as algebra one, two, and geometry, as well as advanced English skills related to information and and ideas, craft and structure and expression of ideas.
The students will work through the content before they attend the meeting with the focus of the meeting being on where they where did I struggle? Where did I excel? How can I help one, one of my friends that is still struggling? The GT specialists are there to facilitate a good discussion amongst the students. They are not there to try and teach the students the advanced skills. Students were identified based on their performance of last year's STAR assessments and the courses that they were enrolled in.
As missus Price, noted earlier, we have several students that have that are excelling. So we looked at what they did last year as sixth and seventh graders. So we had sixth graders taking algebra one, which is a ninth grade course. So we looked at algebra one and eighth grade math scores and those students that mastered their star scores. From there, we invited the top 30 scorers per grade level to the campus. This allows us to create a small, high quality cohort based on staffing and available space on the campuses.
In total, we invited 420 participants, and I'm honestly shocked. 315 said yes. So the kids are very excited, the parents are very excited, I can't tell you the emails that I'm getting from parents, like, this is such a great opportunity, my student is so excited. So they're giving up their lunch for this. They must be really excited. The lunch and learn program is an investment in our most advanced students, not only to strengthen their academic skills, but to help them develop confidence, perseverance, and a vision
for their own success. I'm young. Okay. Okay. The next thing, this isn't the next initiative that I wanted to introduce. So we are looking at bringing, a plus academic competitions, which are UIL competitions, which are sponsored grades two through eight to Keller ISD starting the year 2627. I didn't take this role on until July, so it was too late to start this year, but I'm already attending a conference in a week about getting all this
together, so I'm super excited. So there's 20 different event events for grades two through eight, and they span the curriculum to help what's happening in the classroom and support that. So currently there are 3,000 Texas schools, with 4,000 district events held annually. So we can have three to five students per contest per grade level, and we're gonna begin the process of registering with UIL next month, and then I'm gonna start recruiting, staff and kids, in the spring.
The invitationals, which we would hold in district, would be from December to January of the twenty sixth, twenty seventh, and then you can have another round February through May. So like I said, this is the beginning stages of that, but I'm very excited and in talking to Tim's teachers, principals, and students, they're also very excited. So for those of you who may have had kids in the district a while ago, this this used to happen I think back when we were administrators and it's
a lot of fun, kids love it. It's great academically and so, we're excited to bring this back to Keller with an academic focus on UIL for students starting in grades second through eighth grade. So that is the end of our presentation, and we'll be happy to answer any questions that you have about, our heritage update or our advanced academics update. So, it's like a genius kids club, pretty much.
That's a great yes. Yeah. Yeah. So why did it stop? Well, because we used to have it, and I don't know why. I don't do you remember why? I don't remember why. I don't. I think for Suzanne and I and we talked out in the hall for probably twenty minutes about this a couple weeks ago. There's a financial cost to it, and it's not in the big scheme of things, it's not huge. But, you you know, for me, I wanna spend our money on what we're here for, which is academics. And I wanna put that money towards, something that that benefits our kids.
This isn't because in fifth grade I was on a traveling team and I was on the math team and we did math competitions like this. But, you know, so when you think back to I think a lot of the conversation for us started with, we want to we have so many very highly capable kids in our districts and we wanna challenge them. And we want the National Merit semifinalists. We want the National Merit finalists. How do we do that? You can't wait until you're in high school.
You have to get you have to start working with these kids and inspiring them and get them to rally around and love academic achievement as much as we do athletic achievement. And so this is this is the start. This gets us going in that direction. And if you look at our especially our middle schools, I'm you know, we can't predict several years out, but it's a good start, it's a good place to to target and it's gonna it's gonna it's gonna be significantly benefit those kids.
So, we're really excited about these these both of these projects. Well, I'm just saying I'm glad it's back. I think it's it'd be good to add our addition back to Keller SD. I'm set. It went away for whatever reason, but, I think we spend a lot of money on some silly things. This is a really good thing to spend money on, so I like it. Yeah. I'm very excited about it. I know we've talked about it a lot. Corey's probably tired of hearing me ask about if this is gonna come, so I'm so excited this is coming for our students. What are some of the different events that are part of that ULA?
So at the elementary school they have things like chess puzzle, where they're not playing chess but they're trying to figure out, like, strategies and things like that. They have music memory, they have ready writing, they have storytelling. Once you get up into the upper grade levels, it's everything from art to science and social studies to listening skills. There's an impromptu, contest. There's, number sense, those kinds of things. So So it gets more advanced as you go along. There's one I'm looking at her chart dictionary skills.
So there's a competition for that. Okay. Well, good. Well, it sounds like it's a little something for everyone, which is great. I think that's the the key is finding that thing that keeps them in there. And stepping back real quick to heritage, I just, I appreciate that you mentioned about the communication to parents because I do think that's so important. We've, I think, all said it at various times on various topics. One thing I would just say from my own personal parent experience, I've got a kid who loves school. She loves being there. She doesn't love talking about school. So if you're gonna communicate it to the parents, if you can find some way
to give them enough to really ask those questions and reinforce, I think, you know, at least in my experience, it would be helpful to know a little bit more about what's going on, so maybe just in in the crafting of it, making sure our parents are well equipped to have those conversations that you want to reinforce them just because sometimes it can be hard if you don't know exactly what happened in the classroom to then ask a follow-up question to get to a true conversation. Yes. And thank you for the suggestion about, like, posing questions to parents, so thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you just need somewhere to start. Yeah.
Okay. And then, the other one I had was just on the clarification on the math. Yes. Math adoption. I think that's a Yes. Industry term for education. I just wanna make sure everyone kinda gets it because it I think it took me a second to connect it here. So this is new curriculum. It'll be a heavy lift for the district to be looking into this. Can you talk a little bit more about just what's ahead on that and just kind of making sure we're clear? So the TEKS haven't changed. So with just to clarify, like, when we adopted science, the TEKS had changed. So this is kind of like what we did with reading.
The TEKS hadn't changed, but we wanted to look at, a new program. It's the same thing, what we're doing with math. And the TEKS haven't changed, but, we are looking at a new instructional resource. And so, it's a it's a big lift when we adopt curriculum, we rewrite units, and we bring in new resources. So, I mean, we will spend all year doing that. Our goal is to bring to the board in February a recommendation, because we have
curriculum lighting teams of teachers that start to come together. They will come and listen to presentations from vendors, for an adoption. And once the resource is adopted, the curriculum writing teams of teachers and the district staff, will start working on widening the units, for teachers to teach, for the next school year. So it is a big this is a big lift. So but one that we're committed to. Okay. Well, thank you for all the information. It's been a great presentation and a lot of exciting things ahead, so I'm very
thrilled to hear all of this stuff. Thank you. Actually, I have some questions on the lunch and learn. So, okay. So I know that it's stated that you invited what was it? Four hundred and thirty? Four hundred and twenty. 420 students to come and 315 accepted the invitation. Yes, ma'am. So that invitation, did that go out through Parent Square or how did that or just to the students personally? So I did both. Well, I did not go through Parent Square because I don't I'm not assigned to a campus. Gotcha. And so I sent the invitation personally to the students, so they got a hand
delivered letter that said, congratulations. You've been accepted for this. So we tried to make it fun. Right. I also sent the same email to the parents and just let them know, here are the criteria. Here's why your student was was, selected. And then the parents had the option of just clicking on a Google form and giving the permission to us, or the kids could turn in the sign permission slip. Gotcha. So and then I also sent the list of the principals just to let them know, like, here's the list of the kids we're looking at. Is there anybody on here that we are missing that you would like to invite?
And we did have some principals add some children. So. I think And was your goal is it, like, 30 students per campus to partake in this? So it was 30 kids per campus per grade level. Okay. So sixty sixty So those campuses with seventh and eighth will have 60 kids and Yes. Those with other grades in there. Okay. So if if a grade level by chance does not have the full 30, are you going to extend to possibly some of those students that maybe are not in the top? I mean, maybe broaden it just a little bit to invite some of those students
that maybe have been in the top 2% of math, like, in STAR over the last several years? We we did. Oh, okay. Awesome. Awesome. No. And the reason why I asked that is because my child seems to always fall in that category where he just misses things. But and and it's I don't mean academically just misses things. It's like his timing within our district. Mhmm. So, I mean, he was identified very late as a GT kid. And once we realized that, we were like, oh, that makes sense. Mhmm. So when it comes to something like this, Elisha has always been in the top
2% every single year with, the STAR testing not only in math but also in English. So, you know, I if and I don't know if he was, invited to do this. I I literally have not been home over the last several days, but, I think for our students that do test like that, who are GT kids that maybe aren't in that tippy topic, there is room for them to get in there. I think that would be amazing. And hopefully, we see this program extend or expand over the next several years because I think this would be amazing to not only encourage those kids to do better,
that are just right there, so I really appreciate you bringing this program to us. Thank you. And just to clarify, we did not send the invitation just to GT students, so, I didn't want to be exclusive in that in that manner, but I did want to protect, like, the integrity of the program. Right, absolutely. No, I love that. I love that it's coming back and thank you for that. I'd like to just go back to the heritage, communication to parents. Are they privy to kind of a broad overview of the plan so they can help participate in the improvement plan?
Yes, we will give them kind of what we talked about here about the instructional focus and I mean, we we will outline, like, what we're doing, in that plan. So yes. Thank you. Yeah. And I just had a quick question. So when we talk about like, I like the language that you use with building a community of learners. And so when I think about building a community of learners, like, I think it's great what we're doing for our seventh and eighth graders. The community at UIL stuff, I think, will begin to kind of reach a little bit further back into elementary school. But what about our our fifth and sixth graders that are at intermediate schools?
Is is there an opportunity where we can when we talk about expanding the program, I think about, like, breadth and scope. So is there is there an opportunity to do something like this at our at our in our younger grades? We think so. Doctor Wilson wanted us to bring this down, and we said, can we just do two grade levels to get good at it? And so his initial request to us was can you bring it down to fifth grade? So we will get there. We just wanna we want we wanted to try it with seventh and eighth grade
first before we bring it down to fifth and sixth grade. So yes. You're welcome. Great report. Great update. Thank you, both. Thank you. Alright. We'll move into the, consent agenda part of our, agenda. Anything pulled from consent will vote on towards at the end of the meeting and items pulled from consent. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? Vote on to move. Can I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? All in favor? Seven o. Thank you. We'll move into our first, action item of the evening is the approval of employment
recommendations, contract, contract renewals. Doctor Wilson? This is Nara. Thank you. Good evening president Burt, trustees, and Doctor Wilson. On page 57 of your board book, we are requesting the approval of contractual employment Recommendation for the following positions: Shanna Moss, principal, Hidden Lakes Elementary School. Michael Keyes, principal, Timberview Middle School. Doctor Sara Guerrero, assistant superintendent of secondary education.
And Pamela Srinathan, chief financial officer. The administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the employment of the administrative positions for the twenty five-twenty six school year as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. I'll second. Heather and Jennifer, any discussion? Are we gonna meet these individuals? Yes, sir. And before I ask our new principals and, our new assistant Before we, before we meet these individuals, we've had a motion and a second and no discussion.
So all in favor? All opposed? Seven zero. Thank you. Thank you. I do want to let the board know that, Ms. Drennephen, is not able to be here with us today, but you will meet her at the November regular board meeting. So now I would like to ask our principals to come up. Ms. Shannon Moss. Good evening, members of the board. It's an honor to stand before you tonight. For the past six years, I have served as the assistant principal at Hidden Licks Elementary, working alongside alongside some talented teachers, dedicated staff, and of course our inspiring students.
During those six years, I've worked with two principals, both of which I've learned a lot of knowledge from over the past six years, and I want to thank you for your support and your confidence in me in moving the campus in a forward direction and continuing the excellence that we have at Hidden Lakes. Thank you. I wanna say real quick, so I had a privilege my my both my kids went to Hidden Lakes, and so they had the privilege of having miss Moss as assistant principal. And, I just wanna say, because I told my daughter I would, Amelia says hi.
Congratulations. Please hug her for me. No. Please hug her for me. And, mister Campbell, I wanna thank you, for lending us your friends today for our Keller Shake judges that went off there without a hitch, and I think they had maybe a little bit more fun than the kids did today. So that was a lot of fun to do. Yeah. Yeah, I appreciate you. Congratulations. Thank you. Mr. Keyes and Mrs. Keyes is here with him tonight. Board of trustees, doctor Wilson, thank you for this honor and privilege to be the principal of Temaview.
I really do appreciate it. Miss Najara, thank you for this opportunity. I give you my word that I will do my job with commitment and integrity. Would also like to thank Mr. Roby Nunn, a mentor, provided wisdom as only someone from Cuban, Texas could do. So I didn't listen to him. I would also like to thank Doctor. Guerrero, my mentor, my fearless leader, my dear friend, thank you. It's an honor and privilege to follow in your footsteps.
I will not mess up because I know what you would do to me. So, I lost my hair just thinking about what she would do. I would be remissed not to mention my Timberview family, some that are here. I really do appreciate them, the students, the community, they inspire me each and every day. I want to thank my wife, Brandy, who was hesitant about coming up here with me. I will talk to her about that when we get out. Our four beautiful daughters, but seriously, Brandy, thank you for your patience and your love
and for joining me in this journey. Thank you everyone. And doctor Guerrero, please come up. Board of trustees, doctor Wilson, personal thank you for, another incredible opportunity and for trusting me in this. I'm sorry. I'm a bit emotional today because they are sitting there and they're my why along with every student that I have had the opportunity to work with. I'm sorry. To do a job like this, it takes a lot of support and a lot of love and people that believe in you.
And it starts with the people you work alongside every single day. So I know why they're here, and I wanna say thank you. Because of you, I'm better. I wanna thank every student. I know there are students listening because they told me they were. Somehow the word got out and it wasn't for me, but I wanna thank them for everything that they have done for me. I also wanna thank every principal that I have had the honor and privilege of working alongside and that I get to work alongside, continue working with every parent.
A special thank you to Jennifer Price. You know, Jennifer Price and I have become BFFs a little too much, but what I love most about Jennifer is that her work ethic and and my work ethic, it aligns very well. But also for allowing me for empowering me, allowing me to be be me, and giving me the autonomy to be able to make decisions when I need to. And so for that, I will forever be grateful. So and finally, the most important people are not here.
You know? So, Brandy, I will talk to my husband when no. In all honesty, I got a flat today while I was traveling to go visit buildings. I I got a nail at at Indian Springs Middle School, so mister Dario did not help me because he didn't answer his phone, but mister Keyes did. So he phoned a friend. But, anyway, my husband is taking care of that for us. I wanna thank my parents who you all have not met, and I hope one day you get the privilege of meeting because they are the best. And I know that they're all around one iPad right now because they only have
one listening. So mom, dad, I love you, and thank you for always being there for me and my husband, my boys. Thank you. And secondary principles, it's go time. Thank you all, and congratulations, and, best of luck in your new roles. Our second action item this evening is the approval of renewal of interlocal agreement between Keller ISD and the City of Fort Worth regarding school resource officers, SROs, for the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six school year.
Mister Hoffman? I got it. Dustin? Yeah. Good evening. On page 58 of your board book, you'll find the action item, approval of renewal of interlocal agreement between Keller ISD and the city of Fort Worth regarding school resource officers for the 2526 school year. As a reminder for our community, the district contracts with the city of Fort Worth for 12 school resource officers or SROs. The SRO assignments for the 2526 school year are as follows. Two officers are stationed and assigned to Central High School.
Two officers assigned to Timber Creek High School. Two officers are assigned to Fossil Ridge High School. And then we have one officer assigned at Hillwood Middle School, one officer assigned to Trinity Springs Middle School, one officer assigned at Timberview Middle School, and one officer assigned at Fossil Hill Middle School, as well as an officer assigned at Vista Ridge Middle School. And And our twelfth officer is a mobile officer that responds to all of our campus when there's need in the four in the four wheel schools. For this twenty five-twenty six school year, the total cost of the district to the
district will be $1,489,735.96 This represents an increase from last year of $70,000 $70,129.5 which is approximately 4.7%. The increase is primarily due to salary adjustments negotiated through the collective bargain agreement with the Fort Worth police officers. And as our school resource officers are a vital part of the district's safety measures and a valuable resource to our students, staff, and families, And therefore, it's the district's,
it's administration's recommendation that the board approve this agreement as presented, and I will be happy to answer any questions. So, he's gotta open it up. I have a motion. So moved. Do I have a second? Second. Okay. Do I have any discussion? Yes. Okay. So so we see a 4.7% increase a year due to the CBA. Right? Has there been any communication with the city of Fort Worth? I understand that their cost may went up to some degree, but we've seen we have a couple of cities that provide the SROs at no cost to the district.
They view it as a way of, protecting the community like they do anyway. Yeah. And I think any any parent would agree that I'd rather be protect your my kids than me. Right? So I really appreciate the city as the partner in that way. We've seen the city of Keller. They're not, in my opinion, doing enough. I've talked to a lot of our city officials about that. We have seen a reduction. They gave us some savings over the past year and there are discussions on lowering that even more over the years. Hopefully, to to match what some of our other fellows are doing. Has anyone had any conversation with the, local electeds or city officials in in Fort
Worth about actually coming down instead of going up? Because we have no control over their CBA arrangements or anything like that. So we've we've not had direct conversation with local officials or city council, if you will. Every year, we do inquire as to what the increases are based on, and so it's been the CBA. And we try to, you know, ask, you know, is there any relief that we can get? The thing about the SRO program, each year they come back with it's a program. And there's three other districts that are involved as well as Elena Pope home, and they do the budgeting based on the number of officers that are requested.
They take their costs and they put them together and then they break them out as a per officer cost along with the command structure and then the equipment that comes with it. So whether it's Northwest ISD, Keller ISD, Fort Worth, or Lena Pope, the SRO cost is the same across the board, and they've not come back to say they're in a position to negotiate. Okay. Well, well, I agree that this is a needed cost. It's one that we really don't have the luxury of not paying for. I would ask that for the residents in in Fort Worth that, you reach out
to your your local elected officials and have discussions with them about this because at the end of the day, to me, there's no difference between a police officer sitting on the side of the road trying to give a ticket as opposed to sitting in our school protecting our kids. And to me, that's much more important. As a district, we all know as a financial situation, we don't have all the autonomy to go and make more money to free out, be be as we're as creative as we possibly can. The cities are not bound by that structure. So, I would ask that those that are listening in Fort Worth, please do take some time to reach out to your local electeds and see what we can do
about reducing cost to school for the SROs and protect our kids. Thank you. And just, Dustin, you mentioned something also, and I agree with with, mister Coker's. The the those that live in Fort Worth, you know, reach out to your elected officials, not just you guys, but every any anybody that lives in Fort Worth. We know the situation, but, the story has always been that this is the price, and that's the price. And whether all the cities, and I think Eagle Mountain may also be part of
that. I'm not real sure. No. You mentioned, Dustin, something important that their community may not realize. This isn't just for the police officers. You mentioned command Structure. And that command structure, according to the agreement, is shared across all all school districts that includes, the staff command structure includes two detectives, six sergeants, two relief police officers, and one lieutenant. So it's really the the point of four word to take and spread those cost
of services that they have in general that may or may not be even applicable to the school district, and they spread those across the school district. I agree with with mister Coker. It's it's something we need to have on our campuses to keep our kids and, our campuses safe. We have different different municipalities that just handle it, a little bit different but just thought it was important to point out this isn't this just isn't for the persons wearing the uniforms in our in our campuses. There's a whole a whole plethora of command folks that we're also, also paying for.
Any other comments, questions, concerns? Oh, yeah, I did. Thank you so much. I agree with with Chris and with, miss Debert on the importance of having these officers. I I personally wanted to say thank you to the city of Fort Worth, the city of Keller, and any other city that is supplying SROs to our district. It is so important, and it's so appreciated. Making sure that our students are stay safe is is a top priority for us, and and we're so so appreciative of that. John, I love the fact of what you just read in the contract because that
is literally what I wrote down in my notes. I was gonna say the same thing. It encompasses so much more. So I I have talked to city council, and it's it's exactly what you said. And I appreciate you letting us know that the price is the price, and it is, filtered across multiple districts that, are within Fort Worth. I did talk to Northwest ISD today as well, a trustee there, and, he also was telling us that they just approved their inter interlocal agreement. And they were just a little bit less than what we're paying, but they have
two less SROs. So whenever you do have two more, your your piece of pie is gonna be a little bit more that you're paying into. So I I did wanna do a little bit of research because I know there was, a lot of stuff hitting social media about it. But the city of Fort Worth has done such a phenomenal job, and I just wanna make sure that they know that they're appreciated. So, thank you. I would like to note, based on the per officer rate and I'd like Fort Worth to outline what that includes because it seems to be quite steep in my
opinion, that we're having to carry the cost for so much. So, it's gotta be salary plus more things because based on my research, a fourteen year officer makes about a 105 and we're paying more than that. So they do give us a spreadsheet, I think, on the breakdown. And so a 50% cost of an officer for for all the districts is $88,763.37. And then when you add in the cost, they break out that their command staff
is a an additional $30,000 30,000, $2.07 7.1. So you take that and add it into the the $1.00 8, the total cost for the officer comes out to be, $1.19 $0.04 0.47. I understand there's two different cities, but it just it baffles me we're having to pay so much more for an officer that's doing the same job as an officer that's doing a job in in Keller.
So that that's where I'm I'm having a little bit of heartache over. And I understand it's they say it's nonnegotiable, but everything's negotiable in business. Well, and I think too the different the difference there is that the city of Fort Worth actually has an SRO program. That program is what John was reading off to where it's not we're just getting officers, it's that we're getting two detectives, six sergeants, two relief officers, and one lieutenant assigned to the SRO program. We also have a mobile police officer as well. So it's not just the officers.
So when you're looking back September 2024 whenever we agreed on the interlocal agreement with the city of Keller, which is actually a two year agreement, it is literally just for the officers and anything outside of their hours. Like, even if it they were to work at the stadium, that that is not included in there. So it there they don't have all the extra stuff in there, and plus it's just one to one in Keller. So, I mean, the the numbers that I broke down is that the city of Fort Worth for our 12 SROs are roughly about a 124,000 per SRO if you
factor in all the other fees, and Keller is about 87,000. So there there is extras with Fort Worth that we're paying for, but it's because it's a whole program. Yeah. But is it necessary? And so that that's the whole thing is that, like, I understand your argument for their program. I'm more talking about, is it necessary for Keller ISD to pay into that program? Well, I understand the city of Fort Worth's position, which they can have whatever position they want. They're not Keller ISD. But their position is this is what our program is.
It is what it is. Take it or leave it. I can appreciate that in the business world, not so much in the public service world. And, and that's what we're talking about here is protecting our kids. So the point I'm trying to make is that for a city like Fort Worth, as large as it is with as much revenue as it it it has, if we have other cities surrounding us that are providing an officer in the school and they can do it at no cost or significantly reduced costs and the cost of a fourteen year officer is roughly a $105,106,000 dollars and we're paying how much? A 100 and So for our 50% cost share of an officer in Fort Worth
is 119,000 this is on average. 119,000, $40.47. So a $119,000 for 50% cost share of an officer whose annual salary is a $105,000 a year. How does that make any sense? Because they have a bunch of extra things that we don't need. We need an officer in a school to protect kids. So while they may have a program, I understand that. I'm saying it's not cost efficient for us, and it would be nice if that we could have the local elected officials communicate with us in a way that we
can let them know what we need that's caught that's not cost prohibitive for the district, especially in a situation where we're not getting the funding that we need. That's my point. Yeah. And I'm I know from just experience with talking to different council people, they're readily available and willing to to help in this situation. I the conversation that I had with mister Wauerstorf, councilman Wauerstorf was, hey. I I do wanna talk about this especially for next year. I mean, we already have the agreement coming across the dias now. But definitely going forward, wanna see if there's anything else that we can do to
to lower this cost for us because, obviously, every dollar counts for us, and she's absolutely willing to have that conversation. So, my biggest concern is that I mean, what are the other alternatives? It's, you know, we badger the city of Fort Worth and we pull this agreement and we don't have those SROs. We're then searching for other SROs. We, what, then have our own police force. So it's I I understand the cost, probably. I mean, something definitely to look into. I mean, long range planning, that's something we can definitely look into.
But I just wanna make sure that the city of Fort Worth understands that we still appreciate them even though we are questioning them because the last thing I would want them to do is just pull the agreement. So Yeah. I guess I'd I'd like to step back a little bit. I mean, along kind of the lines that maybe both Chelsea and and Chris were talking about. I mean, so if you go back to 2021 and correct me because I was trying to kinda do this little timeline before I I came here, we had we had four basically SROs. And I think at the time, there was a a concern in the community that
we didn't have the coverage that we needed. And so at the time, myself and Sandy Walker, maybe some other trustees went down and met with chief Noakes, had a good conversation with Alan Blaylock. And then, we were able to reach a new agreement in 2022. These aren't, you know, these aren't the school schedules, but this is calendar year. And then we plussed up from four officers to six, and then that was nice because then at that point, we had enough officers at our high schools. And then the question came up at the time, well, what about our middle schools and intermediate schools?
So if we fast forward to 2023, that's when we, engaged with the city of Fort Worth again, and we expanded that, to where we had 12 SROs. Now you have to remember in the background too that we had Uvalde. And so at the same time that we were having conversations with city of Fort Worth, we were also chatting with the city of Keller, to see what opportunities there might be, to leverage, existing patrol routes that were happening within the community. And so then there was this campus patrol program. It actually goes back much further than Uvalde, I think back to 02/2012.
And then the the discussion was, well, you know, because the district is in a financial bind, in some cases, when you talk about the pipeline for SROs, like, they're they just don't pop out of the air. Like, it takes a certain type of officer to be an SRO to work on an on a campus. And so then the discussion at that time was, well, let's, let's kind of expand the campus patrol program in the city of of Keller. I do think showed a lot of leadership on that where, you know, they they're able to track it. Officers, from what I'm told, visit during lunch.
They may go anytime they want. They may go actually sit in the class not a classroom, but in the office and do paperwork. The city of Fort Worth has a complimentary program. I do know that as as well. And so, you know, through those discussions, these cities know that these districts are are undergoing financial strain. I do think the city of Keller took a lot of leadership where they went in and we renegotiated that two or three year contract. We ended up saving $50,000 as part of that cost savings last year. I do know the cost share is supposed to change from 62 and a half or whatever it is to 50%. 50%.
And so I think, you know, what I what I hear here and I agree with you. I mean, I'm appreciative of all the nine municipalities that are within our district for all of those that provide SROs. But I do think there's perhaps a discussion to be had, not just one off, but perhaps maybe multiple districts coming together and saying, look, we value the SROs that are on our campuses. We value what they do. Is there is there ways that we can find some cost savings that that, you know, maybe in the past we haven't looked at? And I think it's right for a discussion for something like that. And I and I do wanna make sure that we also recognize the folks that
are in this room here too, our safety and security specialists, that play an equal, if not as important or more important role in keeping our our kids safe. Because in the background of this SRO discussion, we've also done great things. And, you know, I I don't wanna put you on the spot, Michael, but we've done a lot of things to expand, basically, our security coverage where not only are we protecting our high schools and our intermediate and middle schools, but we're also protecting, basically, our elementary schools. And, and Keller ISD leads in that. I mean, we have set the example, I think, for other districts.
Well, before h p three came out or s p three where they were talking about you guys needed to have folks on campuses, we were already heading in that direction. And, and, you know, and it is a financial pinch. I mean, $1,400,000 is a lot of money, but at the same time, you know, the state hasn't, in my mind, done its part when we talk about we're gonna staff every campus with a safety and security specialist. Well, that comes at a cost, and I think mister Burt hit that on the head. I think it was last year when we were chatting about it. You used the word paltry, I think, was the word that you used, where I
think they were giving a $10,000 supplement or something like that. 15. I mean, you you can't hire anybody for $15,000. And I think at the end of the day, you know, whatever the the salary is for a police officer, the reality is, you know, they're willing to do things that other people are not willing to do. And, and we're appreciative of that. I wanna be very clear about that. Whether they're from Fort Worth, Watauga, Keller, or wherever, I do think though that it would be nice to have a broader conversation about how do we find some cost savings that can help the district. Because many of those officers, their kids go to our schools too, so like they're
not they're not immune to this kind of conversation about how do we find cost savings. I love that and I agree with all of that. So I guess what my question is is since we're talking about this in October, when should we have started those conversations with the City of Fort Worth? Would that have been in May? Would that have been in June instead of? So so I can answer just from their perspective of Please. We need to start now for next year. So I have my notes of the folks that I need to reach out to
and engage and start those conversations, but we need to start now. Yeah. That way that way, we have we have time and we can work through it. I will say that, I'm gonna echo one of the things that doctor Enclave said is that, you know, we we we talk about our SROs, we have our own folks, and I love and I love the program and I love how it's set up because we do have our own folks but then we also have the SROs, those individuals it does take a a unique individual.
You cannot put anybody on that campus. It just doesn't work. I've worked a lot with Tim over at Keller High School. He's the right individual for that job. And I know there are SROs over at Ridge who've been there forever, they're the right folks for that job. And what they carry with them that is invaluable is the ability to hit that radio and say send the cavalry. And that's their it's it's the presence, it's their ability to to do what they do, but one thing they can't do is hit the radio and everybody comes. And that you can't that's the peace of mind that that we all have, from
those folks on our campuses. So, it it is. It's it's a lot of money, but I think we've done a really good job of of doing everything we can to to take care of our kids and and, make sure that they're protected and safe. Any further discussions, comments, questions? Alright. All in favor? All opposed? Seven zero. Thank you. Alright. Next on the agenda are several action items regarding, approving board committees that were set
up at a previous, meeting, August, I believe. And, so our first is the approval of the twenty twenty five twenty six board advisory budget committee. Doctor Wilson? So, yeah, I will read the the prep on all these and then it'll kinda be the same for the ones that follow. So on 08/28/2025, the board of trustees approved the creation of the twenty five twenty six board advisory budget committees. Parents, community members, and KIA staff were provided a two week window beginning on 08/29/2025
and closed on, 09/12/2005 to submit applications for committee membership. The advisory committees, as you, approved shall be fact finding only, deliberative and advisory and shall not assume the administrative duties and responsibilities. All of these advisory committees, shall report their findings and and recommendations to the board. The the membership list that you have in front of you, was created following the process that you all approved on August 28.
Parents and community members were chosen by individual trustees, and district staff members were chosen by the administration. I do wanna clarify one thing with regard to, what you'll see in in in your board packet on page 76. If you look on page 76 specific to this committee and follows in every one of these thereafter, Those folks in yellow are not those trustees choices. Those trustees, so the the beauty about, this is, trustees have the ability to to
choose and say, I I find a person on this list that I think will, best represent this, or I don't. And that is absolutely, a 100%, a trustee's, ability to do so. When we looked at trying to get as as many folks on that committee, because these are the these are the people that will help tell our story, out in the community, we wanted to go back and fill those empty slots if there were any empty slots. And so if you look at doctor Enclave on this one, there was one person
that was assigned that was not doctor Enclave's choice and mister Coker, trustee Coker, we had two folks that that were assigned in that spot that was that was not mister Coker's. And I I just wanted to clarify that because I know when you look at it, it was highlighted, but I needed to reassign down there my key, needed to be a little bit clearer. So just so you know that those folks were were were chosen, they were chosen by based on where you were in the list and nothing further than that.
Oh, also, if that was a committee that was open and that you wanted to, that the person had elected to serve on. And so we went through the list of the signed amount. So with that, the administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the 2526 membership of the Keller ISD board advisory budget committee as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. Second. And a second, discussion. I just wanted to mention one thing if I could real quick. Thank you, admin, for anybody who put this together. I really appreciate it.
I just ask, just one little favor that next year we please put this in an Excel spreadsheet style, because I had to well, all of us, who participated had to go through multiple pages with just one person's information at a time. And, I mean, it took me six hours because I I if I didn't make the note right, I had to go back and try to find the person and then go back. So I was trying to make sure that all of my selections were broad across the district, and so it was just one of those, you know it just took
a really long time. So I'm just asking next time if we can just have it in an Excel spreadsheet kind of way so we can, you know, categorize things a different way, that would be so helpful. But, yeah, this was this was a great way to fill our committees. I I know it's been widely discussed. It's not how it was done last year, but, I appreciate having the option of of choosing and getting to see people's credentials and what they said on their application and, that was that was fun. So I really appreciate that and I think we got some good committees coming. So as far as the process, mister Burt and I had actually talked about some
of those process improvements that that we can make because that that that is real. And and on the back end of that, you know, you go through it once and you go, why didn't I do that? Why didn't I do that upfront? And so there were several of those that we will tighten up this process moving forward, but point point well noted and, something that that I've heard from multiple trustees that we can help you facilitate that in an easier manner because I know it's a lot. There were, I think, 243 or so individuals to choose from, and we we will,
we we'll make that better next year. And since we're talking about maybe some housekeeping, maybe also alphabetizing them would would be helpful. Like it was just, I lost my place at times and couldn't figure out where I went. Yeah. We were we were we were putting them in the order they came in. I think we need to put it in a in a in a, some of the spreadsheet guys so I can sort. And so we'll we'll, I'll I'll make sure that we do that next year. And you can in Excel. You you can link documents too. I'm just gonna throw that out there.
You know, Jennifer Price, she gets giddy when I give her an Excel project. So I'll hand this up over to her. Yeah. We'd all support that. So thank you for your giddiness and excitement over Excel. So thank you. I just wanted to say thank you to all the community members who had applied. It was a a large number of people in a shorter period of time so we could get these committees going and I think they'll be really beneficial to our district to have the representation. One thing I just wanna clarify is the staff who applied. They were already done through the district but we were able to place all of those individuals is that right?
Yeah. So staff staff has, and I and this is and and I'll tell you exactly what I told our campus principals, I'm looking at Mrs. Wilson out there because she was in that meeting, you know, we want our folks to be a voice. We want them to have a voice. And they tell us they want a voice and these are the opportunities for them to have a voice. We need more teachers speaking perfectly frankly. We need more teachers on these committees. Yeah. We did not. And I I don't wanna say that. I mean, I went through because I was very interested in that because we've talked over the last couple of board meetings about how do you incorporate, greater feedback from
the teachers. And so for those of you that got really nerdy with this, like, I went through and actually made sure that we had good representation across all committees with teachers and what I would say by and large, seventy, eighty, nine 90% of the district members are teachers across the district. So thank you for doing that. Well, thank you. We appreciate that, and that was that was certainly the intent. We will and I will tell you if you guys are okay with it, and I believe you too be, we'll continue to recruit teachers to get to to as they come in and you have folks that, that you talk to or our principals,
Mrs. Wilson, have folks that they talk to then, we we need them we need their voice. We need them to to be heard, so. Right. And if I can just real quick I'm sorry. If if I can piggyback off of that, if anybody from the fossil feeder pattern is watching, we want your input as well. Our our fossil family was the lowest in applying and you guys are just as equally important. So if you are in that feeder pattern and you are hearing this, please, next time that we are having committees, please, please, please apply.
Just one other thing that I think to encourage people is having done this before, applied, not gone on a committee, it was some of them, it was just tight and it was a numbers thing. So I would just encourage everyone to to please still give feedback. I mean, it has the list of the the board members who are on each committee. You can give it to us directly. You can come to talk to the people that are on the committee. It doesn't just because your name isn't on a committee, I would just say please keep giving us feedback and keep coming in because I do think that's how we're gonna solve some of the issues we're facing. Yeah. I would say for some of the staff too because I think I ran into this issue myself is we have some some staff that are community members, but they're
also staff within the district. And and I understand that in some cases, maybe the pool is a little bit thin, but I do think that there should be if we're talking about things next time, I do think that staff can serve both roles. I don't think they should be just restricted to district members. I think they can they can be in in either category. Yep. I I agree. So, so in previous years, right, the way we typically we knew it very different than this. And, so the way it kinda worked is kind of trustee Kelly and Brankley even
really everyone's kinda talked about is the way we kinda got the names and they kinda came and they came through and how it was you had to pick through them. Took some time. The issue with the way it was done this year is that, was kind of like a first come, first served sort of basis. Right? And so we kinda got towards the end. There's a lot of people on that list that I didn't know at all. Never spoken to or anything, and which is exactly why I can't put anyone fourth to be on the list because I don't know them. I mean, when you when you advocate for somebody to be on a committee or endorse them, if you will, not a place should be held held accountable for who
they are, how they act, and what they do, which is exactly why I couldn't put anyone forth. So for but yet, you know, on the agenda, I I appreciate the fact that you clarified, the the fact that they were assigned to me and and to Charles and stuff. I can't vote for something with my name attached to it with people I don't know. Right? So for that reason I will have to to vote no on these, but I want to let you guys know that in advance. I'll have to say I just hope that years moving forward be a little bit more fluid on the process. Yeah. And and that was part and we talked about that and tried to get, you
know, some of that as my as Jennifer talked about me wanting to push things down to fifth and sixth grade. I wanted my time frame to be very quick. So as we go through these and we're looking at future committees, we do need a much longer window, so point well taken. And I think some of this probably piggybacks on what Chelsea was saying because I went through and also tallied by feeder pattern. And it's not just fossil, like Central and there's some there's some and I think we'll have this discussion when we get to the bond planning and the long range
planning, but you know, we have some underrepresentation here. And I don't know if expanding the window would have allowed us to have populated that better. I mean, your your guess is as good as mine. But I do wanna say, I mean, we're talking about things to improve. This process, I do like, so I appreciate what you've done. I appreciate what the staff has done. I just think that when we have some of these committees that are gonna be, kinda helping kinda navigate the future of the district and perhaps opportunities to fix infrastructure. I'm I'm just and we'll talk about this in a bit.
I'm just a little concerned that we don't have that cross section that we were hoping to look for across the district, and that both relates to staff and community members. I'd like to point out though in twenty eighteen, nineteen when we were putting that bond together that, there were some of us that were brought in after the committees were formed. So I don't know that this is a close in, especially with something as important as the bond and the long term range, the long range planning committees that maybe we can add some people when we get a little further down the road and
the big things are starting to happen. Oh, absolutely. This remember these are your committees. These are bond these are board advisory committees and so if you feel, you know what, we need more representation, we need to add some more folks on here, you absolutely have the ability, you just let me know this is what you want to do and we'll we can make that happen. I think Heather brought up a wonderful point because I think sometimes people will fill out an application to do something and then they get into it and then they forget about it or maybe they don't show up. That has happened on multiple committees, for all the time.
So, I I thank you for saying that because that is true. If there if something happens where we feel like we're not getting participation, we absolutely should be able to add to it. So I love that point. Thank you. I think the only thing I would add is, and you mentioned it, doctor Wilson, with Jennifer. You know, you start out small and then you blast it out. This was patterned after the SHAC, committee process and it seemed to work pretty well on a smaller scale.
And then when you go to duplicated it to the this wasn't a little bit, this was a big deal. You know, sometimes it looked good on paper at the outset, as you work through the execution, and doctor Wilson and I have already talked about opportunities for improvement. There are a lot of good suggestions, across the dais here and, yeah, so it's a little bit of a learning experience for all of us and, but appreciate the process, that we all participated in.
It, is really meant to drive community input and, and to that extent, when you have two forty people, you know, and then a certain number spread across, those that were selected, Other than the underrepresentation, I do agree and I do feel that in some cases, particularly on those, and like doctor Randcliffe said, we'll probably talk about this, on a couple of the broader, because every there's no easy conversation coming up in
the next two years with regard to long range planning, with regard to to bond, And it's extremely important we have every piece, every part of this district covered because everybody potentially will be impacted. And then to not have something done, to them but with them and for them, I think, is important. So we'll hear more about it but great comments up here. Food for thought going forward. Anyway, any other comments, questions, concerns? Okay. All in favor of the, Budget Advisory Committee?
All opposed? Six one. Next one we'll move into is the twenty twenty five, twenty six board advisory, citizens bond advisory committee. Doctor Wilson? So on page 77, you will see, our our recommendation for our citizens bond advisory committee. The administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the twenty five-twenty six membership of the Keller ISD board advisory, citizens bond advisory committee as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved.
Second. Motion and a second. Any discussion? Yeah, so this is one of the committees here that I'm a little worried about with the representation. So when we look at it, we've got 42 community members, 14 from the district, but that's actually a little misleading because we've embedded trustees in in here. And then when we look at the feeder pattern distribution across community members, and I too like data, so just bear with me here. We've got 20 from tribal, 14 from the falcon feeder pattern, three from the charger,
and then two from the panther. When you look at the district, personnel, we've got, I think, and and I please correct me if I'm wrong here because I was trying to stitch this together. We've got three APs. I think we've got one principal. We've got seven, teachers. And then when we look at the distribution of our teachers, we've got, I think, two from the Panther feeder pat or the from the Panther feeder pattern, four from tribal, zero from central, and then one from the Falcon feeder pattern. And so, like, this is like, all the committees are important.
But I but I think given the lift that this committee is likely to be tasked with, I think it's important that again, and, you know, from my perspective, because we moved so so quickly to fill this, I know that it may not feel that way based off the timeline that you read. I I wonder if there is some value in us trying to to spend a little bit of time populating this with a few more folks so that we get some better representation from those other feeder patterns. And and then we pick this this conversation back up in in November.
I I I get the idea of, well, we'll just stack people in, you know, as it comes. But I think it's really important that, you know, again, all these committees are important. I like how we vote on these committees because I think it sends a signal that we value your input and your feedback. I think there might be some value to revisit this committee and then perhaps another one in a few weeks when we've had a chance to look at or at least discuss, and then we can share with the community how it is that we're planning on addressing what is clearly an underrepresentation issue. Well, and, to to Charles' point, I'd also like to point out that, you know,
it was a broad overview on what each of these committees did and some of the feedback I got was when are we meeting? What is the time commitment? What does that look like? And just for those that have not been around for a bond, basically what this committee does is you're creating the package that comes to the school board to approve when it gets all said and done. So this committee, based on all the conversations that have gone today and prior to today, is a very important committee and will shape what the district looks like and how we operate with our M and O budget for decades.
So, to Charles' point, to try and fill this up a little bit better with a better, representation of our district and who's in it. I think that's important because this is probably one of the most important committees and the feedback is invaluable. And I guess I, you know, I'd like to have maybe as part of this kind of discussion. So we've got 42 community members and again, you know, I'm gonna leave it up to you guys in terms of how big is too big or how small is too small. And I that seems like a a large list of folks.
And then when I think about the district members, because remember, those are, in some sense, the end user. Like, our children are the end user of whatever happens, but but so are the staff members. And I just I also wanna make sure that we've got a good representation of our staff so that they're able to provide kind of their feedback and needs and all that stuff. And I'm not saying that that can't happen with this as it is it set up. It's just when I when I'm looking at this in totality and, like, John's point, you know, often things look differently, on paper than they do, when you actually start
to flesh it out and go through the process. I just I just wonder with this one and another one if if there might be some value and kind of picking at this and kicking the tires a little bit more. Isn't isn't John Allison gonna be primarily the person who is working the bond? Sir, John and I will both be working on that. Okay. So what if we go ahead and approve the committee as presented, but I can make another motion to say that I would give the superintendent and Mr. Allison the opportunity to add an additional 12, board members to this committee, as they
see fit to get better representation. That would give them the discretion we could go ahead and move forward with what we have here, but give them the the ability to go ahead go ahead and add 12 additional board members as they see fit to get better representation. So so I I like that idea of increasing the representation on our on our educators. But at the end of the day, if you look at the list, and to Chelsea's point, we still have underrepresentation with our our community members. And I think that's where, you know, spending a a few more weeks to approve
this, a, allows him some time along with mister Allison to address the staff issue. But I think it also gives perhaps another window for, our community members out there that are in the charger and Panther feeder pattern to perhaps say, hey. I'd like to participate in this process. Perhaps now that I've heard more about it, so that I can I can my my voice is heard too? Because as of right now, like I said, we've got 20 from the tribal, we've got 14 from Falcon, three from charger, and two from Panther. I appreciate the desire to have more representation.
I really do. I wish it were evenly divided amongst all of them. That would be great in an ideal world. But the individuals who applied met the criteria. They met the deadline. They filled it out. We built it based off that. I am totally on paper of adding more to it, but I feel like we need to honor these people stepping up and wanting to do it and then go seek the others as well because I don't think they're just gonna magically appear in the next two to three weeks because really it's like two weeks before we start putting together the book. So it's it's not a very long window to get more people, So I wouldn't
wanna hesitate and not approve it now so that they could get going. I would rather see us just add to it like we've talked about. It has been done in the past and could be done easily in the future. And maybe reach out to the principals, the PTAs in those areas and seek those people that will be actively involved and maybe just didn't see it in August and September. Yeah. Like I said before, I think, it's healthy to have these discussions and talk about the list to your point about honoring the folks. I don't disagree. I think at the end of the day, though, expanding this and addressing this, on the dais as opposed to just adding folks after the fact and not having that
discussion. I think there's value, like I said before, in, in formalizing it on the dais because I do think at the end of the day it sends, a message that we do care. We care enough to have this discussion on the dais. Yeah. And I I think maybe I was misunderstood. I wasn't meaning they would just add it without coming back to us. I think they could bring it back to us as an additional members, an addendum to this, so to speak, say, pass today and then also bring the next ones forward so that we can see them and know and provide input as well. Yeah. And you made a good point though. The time between now and November is not very long. So to be honest with you, we could easily postpone this and pick it back
up in November. I don't think there'd be any any any loss based on what I'm hearing. When were you hoping to start the committee though, doctor Wilson? Because then you're talking you're in the holidays and this can be very hard to pull people together. So you really you're talking probably January starting. Yeah. Yeah. For citizens bond advisory and that would be you know, looking at it, we've had we've had conversations. Do do we wanna have an initial one before we head out for break? Probably to kind of prep and say here's what here's what's coming ahead of us because we're gonna have partners that help us with this. There's part there are partners that know our data.
There are partners that, that we've worked with that this is what they do, for a living. They work with communities and, those specific ones will start in January, and then we will map those out. As Heather knows, you don't want to build a bond. Your your window, you don't want it too long because then you're just bogged down. And so you wanna schedule it in a in a three, four month window so you can get to the point and then, get all the information so that you
guys have an ability to vet that and make a good decision. So probably in December, December ish I would say, maybe early December, but then get going for, for real I guess would be in January. Let me just piggyback off that question real quick. So if we were to open this back up, like Heather said, can we put on there what the dates would be for the the meetings or any other times
that they need to meet up? So I'll be working I'll be working with our with some folks over the next couple weeks to plan those dates out. Okay. I don't know if I'll have all the specifics upfront. Yeah. Maybe you can give them an example. Like, hey. This could be Is it once a month or is it once a month or every other week or I mean, in past, it's it's definitely more frequent than once a month and once a quarter. I can't give specific dates, but I can give well, maybe probably eight times over the next four months.
Or Yes. And you you do. And that's another thing on the committees. You gotta be there. If you're not there, then you're taking up a spot that that we need we need voice. And so if somebody can't make it, then, you know, we need somebody to come in and take their place so they so that we can get that voice. Yeah. So my suggestion is if we're if we're discussing adding names to the list, which I think is a good idea, Then I don't see the point in improving this just to go and approve an an an amendment later on a denim or whatever
you wanna call it. I think it makes more sense to postpone this, open it back up, let these people reapply. That way, you can do it again, and hopefully that hopefully, we have more, community input or community response from the charger and, fossil feeder patterns. And we can approve this thing in November the right way. That's my that's my opinion. On the Chelsea's point, I mean, I'll be honest. I don't remember what the documents that we've shared where it's been kinda like in totality like this, so where you can actually see again, this is why the Excel
file would be really nice, where you have, you know, the individual and then the feeder pattern. I do think when we look at that larger pool, my guess is there probably are some other folks that are from the panther feeder pattern that are in that pool. But when we were making our individual selections, I don't think you know, because we couldn't see the universe of who had been picked by feeder pattern. I think, you know, it just that's how the process worked out. And so I think to Chris's point, now that we've seen this to, you know, in totality, I think, you know, there there's some opportunities where we go back in and try to try to fix it. So I'm hearing, I'm hearing from the discussion on, on the dais that we we
have a motion to approve. It's been seconded, but I also I'm also hearing an interest in postponing, approval of this until November. I think we can table the motion till November and pick it up there. So do we have a motion to postpone, change it from approval to postpone until November? Yeah, I'll make a motion to to table it to November. Postpone it to November. Do I have a second? Second. All in favor. Any discussion? All in favor? +1, 234. Okay. 61. Six one. So what I would what I would ask is, start thinking about the feedback, the
specific feedback that that you wanna give me, and then I will I will work with you all individually, to kinda make sure that we're all on the same page and that that that process, is is in agreement with everybody so we can get this going. Thank you. I'm gonna ask if it's okay with everybody else for, like, a ten minute, ten minute recess. We'll be right back. So last one was six one. Right? The last? Point, Oh, thank you. That was, that was raised and maybe out of context a little bit.
The intention is no Who has already applied will need to reapply. The the comment about applying was, meant for those as we try to find other individuals in those communities that are underserved that they would, actually apply. But we're not anticipating that anybody who's already applied needs to reapply. And nobody will be taken off. Correct? That is correct. Okay. Cool. Thank you for clarifying that. Unless they wanna be. Alright. The next, the next item is the approval of the twenty five twenty, twenty five,
twenty six board advisory district educational improvement committee. Doctor Wilson? Yes. On page 81, you will see the recommendation. The administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the 2526 membership of the Keller ISD Board Advisory District Educational Improvement Committee or DEIC as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Okay. We have a motion and a second. Any discussion? I would just like to point out my comment earlier to our panther feeder pattern.
I know I was saying fossil, but I know it is fossil. That that was for all of our committees. I I just wanna see a a a healthier, more robust applications from that feeder by central as well, so that applies for all. But, yeah, this looks like a pretty, diverse group here, so I'm excited about this. Yeah. And it's not it's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, that this committee as it's been presented has already met to meet certain, guidelines.
Is that correct? Yeah. We've already established and set up our first meeting with these individuals. Yeah. Is we we we're up against a deadline for, a compliance portion with TEA. Yeah. And so we we went ahead and got it got it going. Okay. Any other questions, comments, concerns? All in favor? All opposed? Six one with mister Coker. Next one is the approval of the 25 twenty twenty five twenty twenty six board advisory district of innovation committee. Doctor Wilson? Yes, on page 84, the the administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the
twenty five-twenty six membership of the Keller ISD Board Advisory District of Innovation or DOI Committee as presented. Do I have a motion? So move. Do I have a second? Second. Any discussion? All in favor? All opposed? Six one. The next committee is approval of the twenty twenty five twenty twenty six board advisory long range planning committee. Doctor Wilson? Yes. So if you look on page 87 of your board book, the administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the 2526, membership of the Keller ISD board advisory long
range planning committee as presented. Do I have a motion? So moved. Do I have a second? I'll second. Any discussion? So this is the other committee that I think would, merit us really looking at in terms of the composition. So, we've got 28 folks that are listed, in as community members. It's a little bit more balanced. We got 22 that are staff. When we look at the breakdown by feeder pattern, we got 11 from the falcon feeder pattern, 12 from the tribal, three from the charger, and two from the Panther. And then in terms of staff, we've got, I think, if I calculated it right,
15 teachers. And then, of those, we got four from Falcon, seven from tribal, two from Charter, two from Panther. And then we do have some principles on this list, two from Charter, two from Tribal, and then none from Falcon or none from the Panther theater pattern. So I think at least from a community perspective, because we're already gonna, move the the other committee to November, in hopes of populating it. This one, I think, would serve as well given the importance of the long range planning committee. Actually, I have a question about the long range planning committee.
So I don't disagree with you as far as the composition of of, feeder patterns and what all is represented. I think one of the challenges too is whenever somebody did apply, they would also be asked to rank what it is that they wanted from, you know, wanted the most to wanted the least. But if they didn't put bond on there or if they didn't put, long range planning committee, it was down at the bottom. So you know, like, there was a section where they could they could say which ones which committees they were interested in, and then they could rank them from least
favorite to to favorite. So, anyways, all that to say is that whenever I got to this portion of assigning people, maybe it was a different one. It doesn't matter. But when I was trying to find people in the panther feeder pattern, it wasn't for bond or it wasn't for long range. So that was the other thing. And so if we do open this back up, I just encourage those, who apply, especially from our our try I'm sorry, from our Panther feeder pattern and our Central feeder pattern that, this be one that you put up there in your higher rank
as wanting to be on. So Yep. And can you remind me real quick since we're talking about, like, the name and what it means? So when the community had the opportunity to, apply, how detailed were we in terms of describing meet? Like, I can't I can't remember that. Go on, sir. Oh, well, we never shared, details about how when it would meet, how long it would meet, how many times it would meet. We shared a summary of what the committee would do.
So just explained what that committee was gonna be responsible for in advising the board. Okay. And it was written in a in a way that like is really digestible? I think they were pretty short paragraphs for each of them if I recall. Okay. I have to pull them up. Alright. Yeah. And I'll say again, I think if we could have more a better idea of what the commitment looked like, the more apt the public would be to say, okay. I can be there. If it's gonna be on Tuesdays once a month, then I know that I can make that time. That was the feedback I got from public. How many people are we talking about adding to Long Range Planning here?
I don't wanna get too unwieldy, you know, with the numbers. Yeah. I I don't disagree, and I think that's probably why a little bit of more time in between will give us an opportunity perhaps to have that discussion with, doctor Wilson and and some of his folks because I I I can't like, if you ask me a number off the top of my head, I don't know. I mean, I'd like to have some conversations about what that looks like. Because I do think that other committee, to your point, it it just seems large, and having worked in a professional setting and trying to work workshop things, you know, a lot of cooks in the kitchen can make it pretty difficult to make a
decision. Is the law still the goal still being, though, to to finish the work in November to get this committee Yeah. Voted in. Right? I would hope. Yeah. Okay. And just for the sake of these people, I'd like to just reiterate that if you're on the list now, you're gonna be on the list in November. We're talking additive, not removing anybody that is currently on this list. Is that agreement among the board? I believe that's what was Yeah. And as we talked about previously. So only people that have not applied prior to this need to apply. Those that are just finding out about it and then we'll know more of what the commitment looks like can apply.
Okay. And just to make a motion to table the, long range planning committee. I just had one more question. I'm so sorry. So for long range planning, is this something that we will come back to at, like, every summer to open this back up for new people to apply? Or is this something that we can just kind of have a continuation and ask our our members in the summer, like, hey. If anybody is ready to come off the committee, we can open this back up for so many slots. And the only reason why I asked that is because I was speaking to, another
school district and their long range planning is consistent. It never stops. So but there is a there is a point where there are people that are allowed to come off the committee and people are allowed to fill those spots. So that I would say the same thing as it's a board advisory committee and we can do we can do whatever the board would like to do. I think that this is, this is is heavy and as difficult as a Citizens Bond Advisory Council is. This is gonna be a difficult committee as well and it's gonna be this is
one where we need to have some really deep hard conversations, with this group, because this is the group that, I I have reached I have a preliminary draft, again it's in draft form so I haven't shared until it's finalized, of what our projections are for the next five years demographically, meaning which are what our enrollment numbers are gonna look like. There's not the fill in data to have it yet or the database that we can manipulate, to to make some decisions.
But this is this is, I don't wanna set a time on it because I don't know when you're when we get to that point that you you saturate the conversation enough that everybody feels good about it. I don't know if we ever get to that point where everybody agrees, but I want everybody to be able to understand and, so I I was made I I spoke with a superintendent who went through a process. I spoke with her today who, in a neighboring district, well, not kinda neighboring, went
through the same type of process. And so just the importance of, you know, you you we we have to we have to share, here's here's what we're dealing with and they're gonna make a recommendation. Now when it comes to to what that looks like it's gonna be here's the recommendation based off of the data. And I think we have to that's where I love the data because the data tells us it doesn't tell us the whole story, it tells us where to look. But it's a it's as objective as we could possibly get as humans.
And so, this is going to be a challenging committee just because the nature of the conversation and kind of the responsibilities that are discussed. Well, I just know that there's so much work to be done especially with long range planning, so I am concerned about pushing it off, but at the same time because, I mean, honestly, if if we lived in a perfect world, we would have been doing this in August, like, filling all the committees. But, stuff happens. So but I honestly would like to see this one get going ASAP. I know and and, you know, thank you for educating the the community tonight as
far as bond really only needing to be a certain amount of time before we actually put the bond forward. This is something that we we gotta get going because there are a lot of big decisions to to make. So I agree. Yeah. And I would just add maybe there was kinda two points to that, kind of that discussion. One is, you know, we haven't you know, it's been a challenge last year and this year to populate these committees. There there might be some value as we talk about what things look like next year to think about, you know, perhaps having, you know, to the point you made
about, there's continuity and they're doing long long range planning throughout the year. There could be some value in perhaps maybe, putting terms on this. So maybe it's not a one year deal. Maybe it's it's two years. At the end of the day, individuals that are on the list, they serve at the pleasure of the board. Right? So if you wanna change it out, you can change it out. Yeah. But it it may help once you find that individual. And then, like, I think about Shaq and some of these other committees, you know, there is some institutional knowledge that's developed over time. And so there could be some some fruit that's yield from having folks serve on
it more than just a year. Because I feel like in some of this, you know, by the time you get to understand the jargon, you develop relationships with individuals on the committees that, you know, then all of a sudden you're off and somebody else is coming on. So there could be, you know, there could be some value in in in doing that. Yeah. Like we said early on or earlier and doctor Wilson emphasized it here, this together this especially will affect really, the community as a whole and pieces of the community.
And, I don't know if you said it or not, but maybe beyond I'll just maybe I missed it. But this is the committee that will use that demographic information to determine we've all heard, you know, campus consolidations, campus closures. I mean, this is the committee when you said this is the heavy lift. I mean, we'll just pull pull the band aid off and say this is the committee that's gonna be looking at that. And it's very important because of that that as many, all the feeder patterns, need
to be represented. That's a very good point. Yeah. For that reason, I think that I would support tabling the motion to get it right. Yep. And we can get this done in November. We have a motion from from, I'll make a motion to table. Okay. She she on the motion. We need a second. Until November. Do we need a second? Who seconded it? I'll second. Okay. Okay. A motion and a second to to table to a November meeting. Any any any more discussion on that? No. Yep. Just in favor. Okay. Well, just quick. I'm sorry. I mean, just one more thing. So then, you know, to the point that Chelsea was making, we do have in
policy about developing a five year plan. And so I do hope that as we talk about long range planning that it's a fulfillment of that policy that was passed by this board. Absolutely agree. Agree. Any any other questions, concerns? Come on. No. No worries. None. All in favor? All opposed? Seven zero. Alright. The next one, maybe these will go quicker, maybe not. Approval of the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six board advisory policy review committee. Doctor Wilson? Yes. On page 91, the administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the 2526.
Membership of the Keller ISD Board Advisory Policy Review Committee as presented. Do I have a motion? So move. Second? I'll second it. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? All opposed? Four three. Last committee item is the approval of the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six board advisory safety and security committee. Doctor Willis? Yes. So this is a clarification I wanna make and it's a little different from the others. So this is based on, tech code, what the safety and security committee looks like.
And there was, there were two there were two community parent assignments. What I did was I took the first two that were given to me. Mr. Burt and Mr. Campbell, they were the they were the early birds So they gave me their recommendations and that's who we went with. But on page 94, you'll see that the administration recommends that the board of trustees approve the twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six membership of the Carolina State Board Advisory Safety and Security Committee as presented.
May I have a motion? So move. And a second? Second. Any discussion? Hearing none, all in favor? All opposed? A seven zero. There were no consent items. Let's see. No consent items to review. We'll go into a preview policy. Price? Sure. Yeah. This evening, we have a preview of, a new local policy verbiage to implement senate bill 11 as directed by the board's adoption of the resolution last month. We worked with outside counsel to draft the policy verbiage, which aligns directly with the text of s b 11. I do wanna point out that, since the posting agenda, we've, received further guidance from
TASB, policy services who recommend actually incorporating new policy in existing policy. So the version that we bring to you guys next month will include this verbiage or however you'd like to change it within existing policies, DGA and FNA. Again, this is just a preview, so, we'll bring the final those final versions to you next month. But in the meantime, we'll be happy to answer any questions. Or if you have any additional feedback, please provide it to doctor Wilson or myself, and we'll, take that into consideration. So TASB has since come out with a They do all they do all their
own or skeleton? Yeah. They own, their own sample policy, and, their suggestion is to add it add this verbiage, similar verbiage to this but within existing policy. Okay. Thank you. So can I ask a clarifying question here? So is it coming back for preview again in the other policies or you're planning bringing us final? So this is the recommended verbiage, for now. If you you can make any changes to that, we would just the it won't come back for we don't intend to it unless you'd like it to.
And we'll bring it back for consideration as two separate policies with this verbiage incorporated into the existing policies, if that makes sense. And can you so you said that so when did when did they come out with their version? After the agenda was posted. So I wanna say it was Tuesday we got it. And will you share that with can you share that with the I'm I'm happy to. Yeah. The the the verbiage, I mean, there are some slight differences, but I'll share it with you and if you push. Sorry. Do we have it where you can, like, put it on the board right now? Potentially. I don't know.
I can try. So while I rather get a, an email version or a a paper copy quite honestly because we can't see that. Well, no. I mean, I would I would like to see if we're gonna discuss it tonight in, in my second year. So while while Bryce is looking for that, I would there I'll make a couple points about this this policy. This was drafted by Welsh guy, I guess, and, it was drafted very carefully. And the reason it was drafted carefully is because there is no there is no
test case on this. This is new legislation and this is this is the first time this policy is being created. So based on based based on how the law was written after. Based on based on how the law was written, what we are trying to do is we're going for a strict interpretation because that's what, that's what our due diligence needs to be due to the fact that this although we wanna open ourselves up
to as little liability as possible, yet we need to follow, for us the intent and the wishes of the board of trustees, but do it in a responsible way that, doesn't put us in a position where, they're potential liabilities. And that's why you'll see the policy written as as is. And I will tell you once the policy goes into place, as we've done with several other things, then comes the regulation and how we implement that. And so with the regulation, there are still some things that we need to iron
out. In one of my conversations with the trustee, just this morning I, it was I was asked a question and I said I didn't even think about that. And so I I would need to to to get some counsel to say that no, you that's okay, this isn't okay. So but I would just I would add that to the to the conversation. Yeah. So while Bryce pulls this up, I mean, upon first glance of the policy, it just seems lacking and it just worries me.
Kind of like what you just said, doctor Wilson, is that as we kind of go through the process, things will this might evolve. But at the same time, I mean, I had a teacher, call me and say, okay. So and this is just an example. But she said, so I'm a Christian. So what if my room is going to be used for one of the prayer rooms, and what if it's with a religion that I don't agree with and I feel would be bad for my faith? And I said, I have no idea.
I said, we're we're looking at the policy, but, again, it will it will need to evolve definitely from this to kinda cover some of those scenarios. Because, I mean, when we're when we're looking at multiple policies that we have in Keller ISD, it's kind of a when this happens, then this happens. If this happens, then this happens. And we have none of that in here, so it just worries me because I know at the last meeting, I was asking that we table the resolution not because
again, not because I'm against prayer, but because I was worried about just the unknowns, and I feel like there was a lot that could be hammered out. And just kind of like what, mister Burt and and what you did, doctor Wilson, during this, agenda, there's a lot of work discussion topics. And I think this could have been one of those where it's just kind of we hammer out some of this stuff before we even consider a resolution, because there were a lot of good points made by our audience with individuals where it's like, okay. Now that it this is written this way, what does that mean for if a
student wants to pray with their friend in the hallway? Now I interpret it, and I'm I'm sure most of you guys would interpret it the same way. It it is not overriding the the the right to pray in school at anytime you see fit. So if there's a football player that kneels in the end zone, if there's a a friend that wants to pray in the hallway with their friend, this is not stopping it. This is just adding to it and allowing our students, instead of having to find a teacher to sponsor their religious activity in the morning or religious prayer or reading
of prayer, or reading of religious materials, now they can do so without that sponsor. But there still will be a lot of things to iron out. So I'm just a little concerned that some of that is not already present in this policy. Well, let's look at the revised and see what see what's in there. But I think that's that's like we talked about the last board meeting. The intent of the resolution was to pass the resolution system for them to actually start the drafting of this policy so that we can have this dialogue back and forth and add the things that we feel wanna be added and omit things that
we feel like may be omitted. Without passing that resolution, we wouldn't be here today talking about it really. So, that is the that is the intent. I don't think the intent, would ever be to take away, but to add to. Right? And so if there's a policy drafted that takes away and doesn't add to, then I would never approve that either. So I'm glad we're going through this process. Yeah. And I would just say, like, with any policy that the board has ever developed, it typically is, maybe not as specific as some would like. It doesn't go through all the what if scenarios that could happen.
That's the administrative regulations that are then developed in the back end of it. It'd be no different. You know, we had not not that you're doing this, but we had similar, you know, concerns or criticisms of our cell phone policy about what about this and what about that and what about this and at the end of the day, that's that's the place of the administration administrative regulations to begin to address some of that. So here, this is, the the edited version of DGA local. Scroll what oh, I'll go. Yep. So, Bryce, before you you start, the draft policy is now called x x x.
Once it it'll become DGA? It was yeah. That was just, that was just a placeholder that was in the agenda. I mean, that's what but it's not gonna be It's TASB's recommendation that we fold this into DGA. DGA is an existing policy. All that it includes right now is, the black text, so everything in blue would be added, and that's all, dealing with, the resolution y'all passed last month. And you're in a short copy of Oh, yeah. Okay. Thank you. I mean, I'm a speed reader. Do you you can't read this fast? I can't.
Disappointed. And again, what I would ask you guys to do is is, any feedback, please please let me know as soon as you can. And then, I'll work with Bryce to, to bring something to you at our next meeting. And again, f and a, it's the same verbiage. It's just for, for sorry students instead. Also an existing policy, it's just adding to that. So we did the resolution. It was to develop what I thought well, not what I thought. A specific policy tied to that resolution.
And what I'm hearing here is that TASB is is taking that SB 11 stuff in the statute and gone through and modifying within our existing policies the verbiage that satisfies SB 11. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's you're still adopting policy verbiage and revised policy if you wanna view it that way. So it's still in line with the resolution that passed last month. So from what I just read, Chelsea, is there something in you that makes you
seem like it would take away someone's rights and not just add to? Because I'm I'm not seeing it. Say what? Is there anything in here? Like, where where where where do you have concern about it potentially taking away? Oh, no. No. No. That I was I was literally addressing what what, an audience with individuals person said. So it was, it was on page ninety one nine of our board book, and it's just that last sentence. So I was clarifying that. I was saying that it does not take it away because that was one of the questions. That was one of the questions with audience with individuals was, you know, are are
they now able to still have their right to pray at any point? And and they are. So I was just clarifying that for that individual, but, no. I I never said it was gonna take anything away. So this this last part that says this policy does not prohibit a student from or employee of the district from participating in a prayer or reading of the bible or the religious text during the period of the school day and is not that is not designated as the period of prayer or reading of the bible or the religious text. So they read that to believe it was taking it away?
I guess so. So I was just clarifying that. Yeah. I think it was the part above it in number two with the only in the classrooms or areas in which the consent form is. They were talking about it. Can you still do it in the hallway if it's during that time before school when it's limited to that classroom. Oh, I see. Okay. And I will tell you this is a scenario and I understand the legislative intent, I understand the conversation and and often the committee there is there is healthy robust debate, where some of these get flushed out and some of that happens on the floor as well. With new policy what I would caution us is, it's important to to not interpret
as is interpret as little as we can and stick to the text and the intent located in the text. That's that would be when we get to the regulation part of it as well. So whether we adopted or voted for the resolution or not, TASB was going to go ahead and show this. Show what their interpretation was, what their information was going to be, how you would marry that into already local policy. So this was already going to be provided by TASB.
Yeah. At our request, for districts that decided to, vote approve the resolution as a SBLO. So this wasn't sent out to everybody. This was at our request that they were doing that. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. I think they they would have they would have eventually provided it to anybody who asked for it. Right. We just yeah. We asked for it. So I know. Right? It's typically yearly that they do some sort of policy updates and and they give recommendations to the district like, hey. These are some policy changes that you might want to adopt. So okay. And then in the middle, we'll get an update, +1 25, I think.
6. +1 46, thank you. Yeah. From them pretty soon here. Right. That's gonna have basically everything that came out of the last legislative session. It's gonna be a a larger one. This they hadn't planned to include this one in it, but they at our request, they provided this for us. Gotcha. So going forward, will this be so I I guess as we evolve, will we have some more specifics for our teachers if they want to maybe, like, opt out their room? Or, like, do we know how any of that's gonna look yet?
I know we're just a policy preview, but do we know how any of that's gonna look as of yet? No. Not yet. And that's that that would be something that developed in the regulation. And anytime when we're and what I've talked to principals about is, I think we visited a couple weeks ago about this and what I what I'd like them know is this is a this is obviously we're gonna carry out the intent but I need their feedback and their and that conversation with them in order to logistically how
do we do that? So we'll be we'll be working with our staff to make sure that we we we roll out a really good set of regulations. Have you heard anything from staff since the resolution was adopted? Has anybody reached out? Conversations? Me personally have not. Okay. Like I said, I talked to the principals about it and and here's what I would say it's it is this is this is this is this is this is an issue that put that was put before boards of trustees across the state and
will be put before all boards across the state and, you know, our job is to do the best we can and, as the wishes of the board you you guys have told us as a group that this is what we're gonna do and we're gonna do it to the best of our ability. But we need to do it point well taken, we need to do it responsibly. Yeah, well and I mean just to reiterate my issue was with the haste. I just wanted to do a little bit more research, canvassing, things of that nature.
So, obviously, like we've said multiple times tonight, this will evolve, but I just wanna make sure that the district is protected as we go through this process. So Do you have a estimated implementation date? I do not. Okay. No. So, so my reading of this, to me to me, it seems pretty clear that one, two, and three are specifically about the period of prayer, but I do understand
or there could be some confusion or so my suggestion is where it says, from participating prayer or reading the bible or other religious text, instead of saying during the period of the school day, maybe say while on campus. That is not and then let's then continue that knowledge that that that is not designated as a period of prayer and reading of Bible or other religious text. So that would kind of just eliminate that concern of, oh, it's during that time you can't pray or you're in the hallway or what have you.
Okay. Thank you. Alright. Doctor, Wilson said, as we're previewing this, send any comments, that you'd like to see differently or added, send them to him. And then I'll get you these versions as well and we'll post them on the website alongside the agenda so the community can see them as well. So Yeah. Alright. We're into work session and discussion, to go over, some items that have come up. I guess we'll just start.
This was a philosophical discussion over the last couple of years that had to do with how much technology, is too much technology, or do we have enough technology, on our campuses in grades K through five. And I visited, my elementary school's got some input. I think most of us have and it's just an open discussion and, a lot of it was curriculum driven and, but anyway, it was just a just a topic
for discussion on, whether we have too much, too little, considering the finances as well. It just wasn't the application. I know we went from one to one, then we went down to two to one, something like that. And, we heard from miss Price that sometimes the teachers have to juggle iPads or devices and a two day map. A one day map becomes a two day map. And, anyway well, I I appreciate the idea of, you know, trying to cost, right?
But, you know, of course, we still we still burden with the state requirement that star has to be digital, right? It has to be a little so, we still have that burden that we have to address regardless of cost, unfortunately, another under, you know, unfunded mandate. But I also want us to be, you know, wise with how we spend those dollars as little as possible in the area for for now. I mean, two to one seems like it's creates some challenges, but it's doable. Is that seem accurate to you? The only grade levels that we have a a two to one is k kindergarten,
first, and second grade. Third grade and up is one to one. So I think that's a that's a good question, Chris, because I would answer Jennifer's is it depends. It depends on what what your metric there is. What what some of the challenges when you're not one to one is if I'm an individual student, who is assigned an iPad in elementary, because really this is k two. If I'm not assigned that iPad then I don't I cannot use my individual unique login.
And so if I can't log in individually, then I log in as a guest and then I have to go in and I have to log in to each program individually, which if you have kindergartners logging into you you have little kids with, it takes them forever, especially when you have a class of 22. Kids trying to log in, that can be a that could be a an adventure. But the other thing that I will say is going to it depends, is if you we can't track what that student clicked on because they've logged in as a
guest. So there's that layer of security and that our ability to to, go back and say this student did this, this, this, at this time. That with a two to one you can't do, one to one you can because you have a unique login. Yeah. But aren't I mean, in regards to that specific scenario, I mean, the computers, they're locked down anyway. They are. Yeah. However, we can we're also what are they search may not yield results, but we can still monitor the search. So if I'm typing in something and say I wanna look this on Google or
whatever search engine, we can see the search. They may not yield results, but we can see what they've searched out. So what grade level, is it pertinent to have one to one realistically? When when when is the you feel like we have to have one to one at this point? So trying to get my words together. With our new phonics program, we implemented this school year daily skills checks for phonics.
So at the end of every phonics lesson, each student does a five minute, we call them daily skills checks and it's checking for the mastery of the phonics lesson. So right now, we start phonics in kindergarten And because every student needs to take the skills check every single day, it does make it more difficult when you don't have a class set of iPads to do the phonic skills check every day even
for kindergarten. So like if we only have 10 iPads, we you have to okay, 10 students, they take the skills check, then you rotate them through 10 students take the skills check. And so from from an instructional per perspective, even with phonics, they need a device every day for even with phonics in kindergarten. Okay. So, you're going the opposite direction.
I want you to go. Okay. We've established okay. I understand it's not ideal. We were not in an ideal situation in the school district right now. And and well, in the state, not the schools are. It's not in a situation that we can accommodate that, I don't believe. But, you know, but we we we established that it works. It's not ideal if it works the way it is now. Why is it that it's k through two that's, why why is it third grade that we go one to one? Why did we make that decision? Yeah. Based on the curriculum because with our reading curriculum, assignments are assigned digitally and so
student that students need the iPads to access those assignments. And third grade is also when they start STAR. Yeah. And so getting them and making sure because we don't wanna take any chances. Yeah. All all of any assessments that are done are done online on that on a device. Not that they're on an iPad all day long, but the way the curriculum, our resource is is set up. They need a device every day. Okay.
Well, in the mind being on the matter is is we leave it as it is. I don't like the idea of buying more that we can't afford to buy. It's workable at least for now until we can come up with some money out of center. And as soon as we're happy, we've cut down as much as we can. So I'm I'm comfortable with that. So I'd like to kinda push on that a little bit. Is it do we know for sure that it is workable throughout the whole year? Or are teachers and our principals and everyone just working their tails off trying to make this work? And, like, do we know that we can sustain this and the level of support
that is going on? And Okay. So we've only done it for, like, a couple months. You know, the feedback that we hear from teachers is is that it takes up more time when you're having to, like, maneuver class and, like, with map testing, you know, taking multiple days. So we do hear especially from kindergarten, first, and second that it is a point of frustration. Yeah. I got feedback from parents. I talked to the schools that I work with, and they're making it work just
like y'all make everything work that you are dealt with, it feels like. You know? The the I I liken it to nurses and teachers tend to find the workarounds and they make it happen, and I appreciate that. But I do feel like we have the work added to their workload to save this money? And long term, is it really worth the burden to our teachers to have that extra work, extra time lost? That's instructional time. That's you know, if they could get the lessons done faster, they could have more recess. There's all these things that it could be. They could be doing other things, not logging in and out of iPads.
So, you know, the response I got back wasn't, you know, complaints and how it was. I wanna be very clear. They're making it work. But it does seem like we're making their lives harder for what's not super much and it's something that could be put in a bond eventually. So I just think we need to look at it more long term than just the first few weeks and not make it a jump decision. I do think most parents would love to see the kids on the iPads less. I felt that way when I had a elementary school student, but it sounds like they're really trying to balance how much is on the iPads and how much isn't, but there are certain curriculum that we set them up with that that's just how
it DreamBox is the same way, right, and that's starting young as well? That is correct. So it's not even just one lesson of a day, it's multiple times back and forth with these iPads. So yeah. And I would say that I think we're all in agreement that we nobody, nobody, certainly me, wants kids to learn from a computer solely. It should be it should be an addition to or or a tool that enhances but does not replace cause you can't replace that teacher, you can't replace that teacher
interaction. Kids should not be sitting in front of a computer all day. They just shouldn't. That's the teacher's job and I and I believe that teachers can do that that human, that person, that really good teacher can do a much better job than any technology. And so we are all in agreement that we wanna limit it to just the use that we need it for and those things that enhance learning, not replace or take the place of that that human human. I would agree. And I guess that's kind of my question is, you know, when I saw this,
you know, item on the agenda, it wasn't so much about let's dive in the weeds about how many iPads a kid gets or doesn't get. And that's a worthwhile discussion to have, don't get me wrong. I think it was more like for me, it's it's it's philosophical. So, and we got an email about it. I think we all did, the board did, which is, you know, we're not talking about, like, the nineteen nineties here where kids aren't, like, like, needed with technology. Right? Like, these kids know how to use technology better than we do. So, and so I guess the broader question is, and when you again, and I'm
by no means an expert on this, but when you get into Google Scholar and you start to look at the research around technology and does it lead to student outcomes, which I think is what we're trying to kinda back into here, you know, have we found the sweet spot in the district? And, you know, it's a difficult discussion to have about, do we have iPads or not when we buy curriculum that's dependent on basically technology. Right? And that's that's also a part of the discussion. I guess so. What I'm curious about is, you know, have we have we found the sweet spot, because at the end of the day, whether we like it or not, you know,
kids go home and they get on iPads and they spend a ton of time on technology. We know that that has effects in terms of, like, their ability to to retain information. You know, we talk about, you know, kids, you know, not being able to sit down and read lengthy passages in books and understand what exactly it is that they read. Well, some of their studies show that part of the reason that could be is because they spend so much time on technology where it's immediate gratification that they have a hard time really diving into the details and and and pulling information from that. And so I guess, you know, for me, it's really, you know, are we asking
that question, have we hit the sweet spot? You know, the phonics program that you rolled out, I do have an elementary age kid. It has done wonders for my child. So I think it's it's good. But I also kinda question, you know, is that are there other effective tools out there that we could be using that wouldn't require an iPad? I think Chris brings a good point about cost because, you know, this board struggled with refresh rates with iPads and all that other stuff. You know, when do we do it? How often do we do it? That comes at a cost that the state really doesn't help us off set. And so then it's like, well, we gotta go to the community and ask for
$20,000,000 or whatever the amount is. And so I guess, you know, without repeating myself, I mean, are we at that sweet spot or are there opportunities where maybe we can minimize minimize that, so that, you know, again, the research is it seems to me to be pretty clear that especially for elementary age kids that if we pull that out, you know, these kids start to perform a little bit better. So So so I I I would answer that with we were getting closer and then AI happened upon us. So that's kinda changed the game.
And that's Jennifer and and, doctor Guerrero have been having a conversation and, Matt, our CTO, having a conversation about AI and how does that because it's there. We have to figure out how we use it, to the best of our ability and how do we use it to enhance instead of change over. It could be little things and I will tell you I'm just starting to force myself into that world. What I have found is what it helps me as a parent is when my
son comes home with an algebra problem, I don't remember algebra. But I can plug it into CHAD GPT and we can walk through it. It helps me explain it to it. No. You're the math genius kid. I I was gonna say, don't take I was the math I was a fifth grade math grade math competition. But what it does is it helps me. I make him do it, and then we'll go back and check it, and then we'll walk through the process. But but I guess the question on that is, you know, is that is that is that deep learning or shallow learning when we have something that tells us what to do and how to do it? And I guess that's the question is, you know, particularly for like I think like
elementary age kids, I mean, they should be reading books and writing and stuff like that. And, again, don't get me wrong. I mean, I'm an academic. I mean, I use technology in my in my daily use. Right? But I'm also an adult. I'm not a child. Right? So I I think, you know, and and I'm not going home and spending four hours on my iPad when I get when I get home. And so I guess, that's the question is, you know, are we asking ourselves that, particularly when we go out and we look at curriculum, and then knowing the fiscal constraints that we have in terms of having to go and refresh it every three or four or five years, you know, are there opportunities to to minimize that footprint
even further if it makes sense? And and and I can tell you we we are working on that. Yep. And speaking of a refresh we're there because we have the reason we're two to one is because we have, I can't give you the number, but a series of iPads that are no longer usable. So that conversation is coming up. Well and I definitely think that the conversation is twofold, to piggyback off what doctor Ranklev said. So I can only imagine with kindergarten babies and half of the class is trying
to do maps and the other half is, I guess, trying to learn something while one is testing where I don't know how that would look. But I mean, hot off the press, I actually had a teacher text me as we're talking about this right now and she's like, it's a nightmare. I can't imagine. So I I think it's twofold. I think the way that we actually lessen technology is to make to ensure that we have what is needed for each classroom so we're not having to cut half of our instruction time to test these students and then test the next one on
the other time we should be teaching the whole class. So I I I do think this is definitely gonna be a conversation coming up for bonds. I know, technology bonds instead of thirty years or five years, so it's not gonna be something we're paying on for thirty years. That was a question I I had earlier today, but, it's one of those things where it's, like, about the time that the device is no longer usable, it's when we're gonna have to come up and come to the community potentially to ask for, you know, another bond to to renew the iPads or Surface Pros or whatever it
is that we use right now because I never say it right. But, I I think the conversation is twofold. If we have what is necessary in the classrooms, then the teachers are going to be able to have more just hands on instructional time instead of fiddling with the technology. So, I'm with you. If we can look at curriculum, which I know you you girls are so amazing at that, if we can look at curriculum, that will, lessen that technology footprint for us in the classroom, that would be amazing.
So Now we just add for folks that, wanna read an interesting book about that. This it's a little bit dated, but it's called Glow Kids, and, it kinda talks, talks about the influence of cell phones and just increased technological the technology usage within, kind of our our younger kids and kind of what the outcomes, have likely been because of that. Can you repeat that? Glow kids. Glow kids. Glow kids. Yep. Glow kids. Yeah. I think the important thing is just to have it top of mind as you're making decisions and as you're looking at it.
I know you guys are weighing all the things. So I think from just the the perspective, I would imagine we all agree that, you know, when you can limit it and work around it. But, you know, do what you need to do to help our students. Yeah. I think the what I heard also was we have to help our teachers be efficient, whatever that might look like. And, they they work the tails off and, you know, sharing. It's working. What what I glean from my visit on campus is it's working.
But, as we said earlier, it's being forced to some extent. And the logging out of a student and re logging in of another student, while the other students are doing something else doesn't seem like an efficient use of our time. And we're here to educate kids, and we're here to have great educators educating our kids with whatever tools, they have. Now the best tools that they have. Now that doesn't mean always technology, for sure.
And, the only thing I disagree on is putting technology and computers in a bond. Don't that doesn't sound good to me at all. I mean, at this point It's not when it comes around. At this point for technology, we're refreshing every three years. Five five years I feel like we just we just did it but the iPads are already out out of commission and I know there's teachers that don't have are having to get replacement laptops as well. Yeah. Yeah. And bonds, it's it's really difficult because five year bonds I mean, it's still that's
still a little iffy in itself. But, trying to pay for these things every three to five years is very challenging. But here's here's Do we find ourselves in? And, I mean, I think everyone there's not a single person in here that probably would disagree that we would love to have one on one at all at all ages. Limit the time, you know, use so that we can meet all, metrics that we've talked about here on the status. But the reality that we live in is that we don't have the money.
And so the only way I think about that that we're gonna be able to update these things is a bond, unfortunately. So my 2¢ is is, if it really comes down to it, I think we make deals with what we have as long as we possibly can. And if it comes down to it and we take it to the voters and they want they want the they have the money to to to go to a one to one for the students, then that's what we can do. But up until then, I mean, we don't really have a choice. Right? I mean, there's we don't take my knowledge a little bit on these stuff.
Yeah. One other point that some parents brought up to me was even though they're on the devices, sometimes there's still gaps of, like, learning how to type and things like that. So where it can be incorporated, if we can look at how we make sure they get the skills that they're gonna need as they grow as well. You know, hopefully, they're doing some of that at home when they're on their iPads, but it'd be good to have that as a skill. You know, that that's a valid point. Maybe we looked into, you know, putting a couple desktop computing devices on desktop computer for our purposes forever. I mean, we looked into putting a couple desktop computers in the classroom in addition
to the iPads that are gonna help supplement all those things. I mean, like, I think that would that could help with, some of those scenarios while at the same time get some typing skills in that they're probably lacking if we're just doing everything on iPad. I'd have to ask, we used to have that many years ago. I I don't remember the reason why we went away from that, but that's something we can definitely ask technology about. I can tell you, I I operated call centers for years, sold it up 11,
and I had computers that over twenty years old, and they're still working. They're still humming. You may need a a a data hard drive or something that's $200, you know, every five or six years, but that's nothing, by comparison. So, I mean, sometimes the best way forward is backward, especially in our circumstances. So I would say maybe hook into that a little bit. Well, if we're wanting to put, you know, the desktops in the classrooms, you can literally just canvas all of your software engineers in the whole community because they all
have 5,000,000 hard drives at home that they've saved over their lifespan of building computers. My husband is one of them, and I was gonna say, even our own technology office, he's got a lot of he's got a lot of technology equipment in there that we could just patch some stuff together and throw it in there and not cost us a a cent. So and we'll also put DOS on there for you as well. But no. I I I agree that they need to be able to be used for skills in the future, and it's hard. These iPads do not have, the the keyboards attached to them.
So, typically, they're just punching instead of actually typing. So, I mean, that is something where it's like maybe we just have something like this that is for one iPad or, you know, something like that in a classroom. I don't know. But, needless to say, it would be beautiful to have less iPad time and it would also be wonderful if, you know, the children were not were not having to be staggered. Actually, something you said earlier was amazing to me, and I wrote it down where you said that they were staggering the testing so that if the classroom didn't have one to one, maybe this classroom was doing it at a certain part of the
day and another classroom was doing it at another part of the day. So I love that. So I'm sure our teachers are already implementing that. So Yeah. So I think the, kind of what I heard is keep doing what we're doing and look for opportunities to reduce, the staggered. I think that sounds like a great idea. So it's really just the I guess the direction to, you know, to the district is look for opportunities to reduce reduce the screen time without overburdening our teachers.
And maybe it's a it should be a good topic of discussion with the new technology officer that comes in whenever whenever he or she does. Let's move on to, you know, we've looked at and talked about different ways to bring additional revenue into into the school district considering the, as we've said before, the paltry funding from the state. So we've talked in general terms about educational endowments and, so that I put it on here for discussion point, maybe for doctor Wilson to explain in a little bit
more detail, about what that might look like, why we're even talking about it, and, so I'll turn it over to you. So, we had a really interesting meeting. Doctor Rankeleve, had asked to to to meet with, me and, Amanda McGraw from our education foundation and mister Burke joined us just about starting that conversation of I I
I love the idea the the idea behind an endowment for is is to set aside money that grows that goes directly to benefit our teachers in some form of compensation. I believe, we we felt as a group that there are individuals in our community that would that would be willing to say, you know what? I've I've been blessed in my life and and I want to to give back, but I wanna give back directly to my to teachers. And so, obviously, that's a big ask and and how do we grow that?
But it's starting the conversation of setting aside that the money and and what we'd had the conversation about was, there is property for sale in the district, there is additional property, And could you shift some of the sale of that money to to kinda see that? What, I've received word. We we checked into that and and that is there's an AG opinion that forbids that. So but I think it was a great idea to to go down that road and start seeking some of those questions.
I think it then led us to to sponsorship and, how do we raise money and not just because we're kind of there and and anytime I go to the stadium, I look at buses and I look at what's on the side of their buses. Or I read the the news blast that I get from around the state And I'm looking at who's who's giving them money in other revenue streams to do the things that they wanna do. And I think there there are a lot of those opportunities out there for us.
Cause we have great partners across the district and I know that we have individuals, businesses that, that wanna do business with us, so we'd be happy to do business with them obviously if if it's gonna benefit us financially. And so just just to generalize knowing, just to let everybody know we're starting those conversations, and and I think it's we're we're ready to to dig deeper into that if that's something that you guys are willing to allow us to explore.
Can you speak real quick to maybe some of the other districts in the state that may have kind of explored this idea just to kind of put some context on? So with the sponsorship, so there is a there is a, one of our neighboring districts, if you go down 1709, it's two over, that there's a there's a, one of the hospitals in the area as, naming rights to their stadium for a million dollars. So that's significant money and that's money that obviously we could look at, to to
benefit if you go and you you look at the sides of buses. That's a revenue opportunity. And so obviously we wanna we wanna be cautious and be respectful and you don't wanna but there are there are many opportunities out there that districts are starting to capitalize on. And, like Carol's buses, I noticed their buses. I can't remember the other the other group. Grapevine Collierville is exploring a lot of this. Grapevine also did build like, they they put up billboards and stuff like that that they derive some some, like, passive revenue from.
That's correct. I do know that. Yeah. And so we've we've we've had discussions about billboards and some of those things. It's just finding the location of the right property and then what do we wanna do it. So I think there there are others out there that that are great models for us. So yeah. And I think also from what we discussed or what we found out, Wiley Wiley ISD, Highland Park ISD, and we might have a couple others that are already, have
endowments in place. I think the of course, the Highland Park is a different demographics and a different probably a different income level, but theirs is in the millions. Millions. They they find the 1% teachers raise every year in perpetuity, if that's the right word. So that would be that would be our aspirational goal, would be to, to to get to that point. But, you know, we never we don't know if we're gonna be able to do that unless we try. And, Wylie ISD, they they run that through their education foundation. What Wylie does is they have specific scholarships and it is total endowment and what
they're telling the the folks that are donating is there's a certain percentage that we're gonna get back in scholarship for every amount of for every dollar that you donate. It may be five percent. But what they're doing is I love the idea because it's doing it long term. So it's a legacy. And correct me if I'm wrong, but this additional revenue that might come through the endowment is not subject to recapture. Correct. So everything that we've looked at, that's a great point. We're looking for revenue and and right now it looks like it would be counted
as other revenue, which other revenue doesn't count into our normal revenue which is then, subject to recapture. This would be additional money and this is one of the few few ways that you can do that to to to where it isn't subject to recapture. So and you briefly brought up, how Wiley runs it. So is the Education Foundation and Wiley is the board, but are there other instances where there's a separate board that runs the endowment? What I've seen is from the public education, what I've only I've seen the the
foundations are the ones. And the reason being is because it's first of all you're $10 then you're dealing with investments and then you're dealing with required reporting. It's it's significant And what we talked to Amanda about is if that's an that's something we wanted to partner with with the foundation on, they would they they can do many of those things and they have the expertise but they would have to grow their staff. Because when you're getting into endowments that's that's something that somebody's gonna have to specialize
in. They have a member on their board who's dealt with very very large endowments and that that's a a past responsibility as his. And is there board oversight or admin oversight on on the endowment board? Yes. And so that would be it would be the specificity of you you all outlining what the expectations of that are. And it would only be used in that capacity. Well, and then my other concern when it it was brought up about the EduFoundation was, is it gonna muddy the waters on all the donations that they get?
You know, will it will it cross? So we talked about that too and what what what Amanda, had had said is they have a certain donor that they target right now for them. I think to doctor Rankley's point, there are donors out there, it may not be the business larger businesses because they have a purpose with how they wanna give, but there are other individuals who wanna give in a different way. And so let's let's expand and give everybody an opportunity to to give back how
they see the best fits with their with their how they want to how they wanna give. Yeah. So to to that point so I've talked to, several people I know in business that live in different areas that own own own larger corporations. They the way they typically look at giving back is they they don't really necessarily like to just give it to someone and say, alright. Do do whatever you want with it. However you feel like it's best gonna suit suit the community or whatever. They like to have a little bit more control over where their donation what their donation is doing.
So one of the things that, was suggested me when I talked to a lot of them about it is, the idea of setting up an endowment where people can donate to it, where the principal can't be touched. You can only spend the interest, the revenue journey off of it. A lot of people I know like the idea of that because it when they invest into it, when they donate to it, they feel like they're donating to a legacy of something, whether it's just something that you give and it's spent. Well, then, I mean, what do I do? But But if I'm dying to a legacy, something that's gonna grow every year and
get bigger and there's limitations on how that money can be spent, then every year, it's getting larger, it's getting bigger, and I'm the part of that. Right? So that's my 2¢ for what it's worth. So and how much you meant you brought up ceding the the fund. How much do you have to have to to cede the fund? That's a great question. Lots of zeros. It it depends on what the purpose of the funds is used for. Teacher salary. So teacher salary is millions and millions just because of the size of our district. So, you know, if you're if you're talking about it and and I would have
to go back and my and I shouldn't have told you guys I have was on the math team because now I'm gonna question my math. But if I was if I go back and look at $10,000,000, let's say it's 5% of 10,000,000, was that 50,000, 500,000? 50,000, right, or 500? For what? 10% of five 10 5% of 10,000,000. Okay. So 500,000. So then divide 500,000 by say, like, 200 teachers 2,000 teachers. It's not much. So that would be it depends on what you want to use it for.
Now if you're looking for a bonus, type of thing, maybe we get to that point where we can grow enough that look, I I'm all for any way we can attract teachers because we want the best and the brightest to work in Keller ISD. And if this is something that that we can grow and say, even if it even if it's starting and and we talked about this too, some folks may not make if they're gonna give they realize that this is a long term growth. You're giving back in in the long term.
This isn't a short term gift. And so they may be more patient to let us to to give us a certain amount and then let us grow it over five, ten years before we reinvest it back into the community because once it reaches that point then you as as you said, Chris, it's reinvesting interest and and it goes on and on. Yeah. So, I mean, when you do a scenario like that, right, is you'd say, alright. We'll use the same scenarios, raise $500,000 in in interest. You don't spend all 500,000.
You you allot 50%, 70%, whatever to teach your bonuses. It's not a lot of money, but it's a start. Year two, it's a little bit more money because now you're investing, you know, $10,300,000. Yes. That's right. And and so it just kinda goes on and on and on. And so it's a more long term play, but you within within ten years, you get to a point where, you know, you're you may be able to give a thousand dollars a year bonus to teachers. And you're actively And you're still recruiting and That's right. And and That's a big recruitment. Getting those donations as well. Yeah. I think the key the key is it's a long term a long term play.
Any any questions before we move on to the next topic? Thank you. It was a good, a good update, for the community to understand a little bit more about potential income streams, whether it's through endowment or other, naming rights or anyway, the fact that we're looking at additional income for the for the district, I think, is fantastic. We heard someone speak tonight. Two people spoke tonight, I believe, on standardizing feeder pattern branding. We seem to have, and people have asked me this too, we have the panther
feeder pattern which is, you know, from kindergarten, they're little baby Panthers and then they're playing football, out on a football field and, how cool that is. And I asked, so part of the discussion tonight, is how cool that might be within each feeder pattern. Central is almost there, in terms of having a, charger nation. I've heard parents tell me it'd be so much less expensive if my if my
kinder could get a, an Indian t shirt or a Panther t shirt or a Falcon t shirt or a Charger t shirt and they could just wear that all the way up all the way up the line. And, anyway, the the pride that they might have in the in, seeing what they're gonna become that we heard about Southlake, I'm more interested in, you know, our ability to to standardize, some things. And to some extent, we already have that. You know, people move in.
They're in a they're in a, a location because I'm in I wanna go to Central. I wanna be a Charger. I wanna be a Falcon. Alright. They get this identity more so from the feeder pattern than being KISD, quite honestly. That's what I'm here. And, so anyway, I thought it would be worth a discussion that really because nobody knows how this happened. When I talked to Amanda at at at, Fossil Ridge, I said, How did it how did it happen? She was at Keller Middle School at the time.
And she said, I don't know. When I came here, they were all Panthers. And it sounded like Lindsay Mockrief might have had something to do with it. And then, I was at another I was over at Friendship, for their science fair the other night, and I was talking to Casey. Necessary. And they're like they're like little little chargers, friendship chargers. And I said, how did you get to be, you know, a charger? Why not something else? Said, I don't know, I think. I think maybe Kevin Hood had something to do with that, I don't know.
Anyway, it wasn't a real nobody knows how this happens but how cool it might be. That's all I I just open it up for discussion. Well, I was gonna say that's some real Benjamin Button situation if people can make it all the way through in a kindergarten shirt. So I just wanted to throw that out there because I'm buying shirts every single year, sometimes twice a year with chargers on it because the kids are growing so fast. But I I hear what you're saying, and I think, to the point that was made I think we had two people speak on it. And I would just like to clarify for somebody who said my name, like, while
they were talking about their feeder pattern having the same, mascot. When I went through the panther feeder pattern, we were not all panthers. So at Parkview, I don't even remember what we were, but when I was at Fossil Hill Middle School, it was, I think, Comanches or something like that at the time. I would have to This was a recent this is, like, 02/2017, 02/2018. Yeah. This this wasn't always long time ago. I'm dating myself. This wasn't always been historical. Right. So The point is somehow it happened. Right. Right. Right. So I I didn't have that luxury, and I think that's the point that they
were trying to make is that I I knew about that and I didn't because all of my schools were different. But, I I agree with you, and I I think I remember back whenever my kids were at Freedom Elementary, and we were given the option, and so mister Mance was the principal at the time. And he asked our school, he said, how do you feel? Do you wanna become the Chargers or do you wanna stay the Freedom Eagles? And it was overwhelmingly our community was like, we wanna stay the Freedom Eagles. There's just something about the name Freedom and having eagles as your mascot.
I mean, we just our community loved it. And so but what brought us together was the Central Theater Pattern Night and our our little, you know, elementary aged kids love to go run through the tunnel and run onto the field and celebrate their football players even though that we were the Eagles. We still knew essentially one day we were gonna be the Chargers. So but I do feel that just for a a sense of consistency throughout your feeder pattern and for a sense of pride of what school that you're going to,
it would be nice for you to start out as a charger at any of the five schools that feed into central elementary schools, because right now our intermediate, our one intermediate, and our one middle school are already turned to charger. So it is just still an outlier of the the elementary school. So, my only concern with that is as of right now, I mean, we don't have money. I I to me, it sounded like maybe there is interest from the community to supplement that. So it's not money coming from the district. It's it's money coming from people that wanna sponsor the change.
We sit here and we talk about personal autonomy on these campuses, and so the the decision was up to the campuses a couple years ago, so I I think it still means on the campus that they feel like they wanna change to Charger to be, you know, part of that Charger community and have it start at their school, great. If not but I I don't know if we would actually have sponsorship all across the ISD. I don't know if if because they they mentioned that they were from the tribal feeder pattern.
If it's just the tribal feeder pattern that has sponsors, I have no idea. So I worry about the the cost as well as And that that would have to be a that would have to be identified. So Yeah. So I grew up in the school district. I don't know if it still is, but I grew up in the school district that was senior. We were the Panthers midway in Waco, and, I loved it. I think it it it brings us into a culture, and I think it's important, your culture and the community that you're in. No matter what school you're at, you're still a Panther. No matter what school you're at, you're still a Charger or what have you.
I think it's important. I haven't heard a single, since this topic has come up, I haven't heard a single person negative against it, personally. I'm sure there are, but I haven't had one community member tell me that they don't think it's a great idea, and that's from all feeder patterns that who've spoken to me about it. So, and I'm sure there's exceptions to that. But, as as far as my opinion goes, I think it's a great idea, and I I understand cost. Yeah. It's definitely a big deal. But we've got community members that are willing to step up and help make that happen, then and that's what the community wants.
And there's really nothing but positive to come from it. And I don't see any reason why we shouldn't return that idea. So I I think where the discussion is leading is is who drives the change. Is it campus level? Is it district level? Is it board level? So I don't know how we determine how that gets rolling. I think it's area soup level. Me, it sounds like long range planning. So if they're gonna be looking at what the future of the district is looking like, then that should be something that's on the table for long range planning to take a look at and get some feedback. I I agree that there's pieces of it.
I'm not I'm not forward or opposed to it. I will say branding is a heck of a lot more sensitive than you would ever think it is because it is the signs on the wall. It is the letterhead. It is the floors, the uniforms, the name badges, the all the things it adds up, and I don't believe that there are community individuals who will pay for all of that. I think that they will probably do shirts and things like that. There will be some fun things, But when we're already hurting for money, it's a huge endeavor. So I think it's something to consider and put on the, you know, docket for
the future, but I don't think it's anything we should rush into today because, honestly, we don't have a way to pay for it. So we would just be spinning our wheels trying to I mean, to that point, I think then, I don't think you can take it to a a long range planning committee because it's not enough subset it's too small to subset the people to determine really what's important to them. So if the real cons yeah. It needs to be more feeder petting level then. Right? So maybe if if that's if that's the case, then maybe we put something out there, some, surveys, something of that nature.
If you're if you're interested and you engage, you know, put it out there to the community. Let them get your response and involved in it. And if you have a specific feeder pattern, it's like, no. We don't wanna do this. We don't feel like we can do this, then we don't do it. But if you have a group of parents that are willing to step up and say, well, we'll go out and raise the money and we'll make this happen. We wanna be chargers. We wanna be you know, Indians or whatever. Then, okay. Then we'll do it. Is there something we could coordinate with their PTAs on that might make a little bit easier? Let them do some of the, footwork for us. The PTAs are at every school.
Yeah. They could they have a better feel at the local level what those people want at those schools or if we wanna encourage them to go into the, you know, everybody be a charger, etcetera. You know, we we could, tell them that's kind of what our goal is and then see what feedback is from the PTA members. But I think that's the avenue to go is, or put the PTAs on this. Yeah. I personally feel that it's up to the principal. I mean, we put that person in place to to manage that facility and that
campus and the community and and build that community up to your feeder pattern. So, again, it goes back to the the autonomy thing and having your local control there. I mean, if if that's what the principal wants and that's what the principal wants. I mean, you brought up a good point with the PTAs. I mean, I I can tell you four campuses that I can walk on right now that no other campus in this district looks like it because their their PTAs are over the top and amazing, and they've done amazing things. And I'm not saying not all PTAs at all of our schools aren't amazing because
they are absolutely amazing, but there's you can definitely see differences there. And, again, that just comes back to autonomy of what that principal allows, what that principal wants to do, what the PTA has the capacity to do, what the community has the capacity to support. So if if a principal came up to us right now and they're in the tribal feeder pattern and they say, you know what? We wanna change our school to tribal, and we have somebody who wants to help us do that, that's up to that principal.
If I mean, if they're not pulling money from from us and they want to create that culture at that school. Well, we give autonomy to principals to own their campus, not to decide their mascot. Right? And we decide that here. So I well, I appreciate that. I think that needs to be a community thing. If the community wants to make it happen, then the principal can't say no. Right? Because it's that school is not owned by the principal. It's owned by the people. And so if they wanna be a charger or or Indian or whatever, then I
think that's what we do. I'd hate to see, like, a massive group of people saying, no. That's what we want, and the principal is saying, no. We're not doing that. That wouldn't be okay. I think, you know, we've done campus visits over the last couple of months and, you know, when I get a chance, you know, I try to kinda sneak it in there and ask, hey, what do you think? And so, you know, the impression that I've gotten from the principals that I've spoken with is, you know, that that's a decision, to be quite honest with you, they're not comfortable making themselves. You know, when you talk about what level, you know, we sit here and we've
got basically the four mascots right behind us. I think that's a I think it's a board decision along with the administration, obviously, feedback from the community. You know, I think at the end of the day what we're really talking about, again, like stepping back and looking at this big picture is, you know, how do you, you know, we got nine municipalities that feed into the district. You know, people move here for the feeder patterns. Their sense of pride is in the feeder patterns. Like, I think about when my son plays baseball, you know, it's cool to see somebody wearing a Charger hat or an Indian hat or a Panther hat.
And so clearly they're identifying with the feeder pattern that they're in. And then you start to think about, you know, not to take this always back to economics, right, but so people already identify by the feeder pattern. We know that that's a sense of hometown pride and and community building. Why wouldn't we standardize it? And when we think about how to plug in gaps financially, you know, there's some marking and some some some opportunities to make money off of that. And I agree with you, Jennifer. I mean, we're we're in a discussion right now. I think there's probably a whole lot of thought and planning that would need to
go in in terms of how you roll that out. No doubt about that. Right? But I think, you know, I I think it's a good idea. We're already there with one feeder pattern, almost there for another feeder pattern, and then we've got two others, that, you know it's hit or miss depending on which school you're you're at so and the cost is obviously an issue I mean my guess is that would be something that would be phased in over time is not going to happen overnight is to your point even if you had the dollars the rebranding is going to take a while to begin with and so. I think those are all like good things to to discuss but I I I
don't think you know John I mean I understand you said like area soups. I mean I think that's a decision that the board and superintendent his administrative staff, I mean, I think we talk about that, we make sure that we have community input, but, I don't see principals making that unilaterally by themselves and I certainly don't see a unless she's miss Moncrief, I don't see her doing that by by themselves either, so. Do Do y'all have an idea of, like, how many how many schools are not within their feeder pattern mascot? Do we know that? Olive Keller is not?
So panther so panther feeder pattern is everybody's panther. Yeah. So their their Falcon is not. No. Nobody in Falcon, nobody in, in tribal and not all of Charger. Jeez. That's a lot. The Panther There's a lot. What I have here is, put together a list, all of the Panther feedback. But but real quick, John, like, it's even weird when you go into some of the schools because it's not even, like, the the color schemes. Like, this is just now kind of, like, we're kinda throwing stuff. You know, it's like talking about ideas here.
Like, the color schemes, irrespective of the mascots, aren't even, like, lined up with the colors. Right? And, again, you know, I just I think there's, you know, when we talk about vision and long term planning, branding is part of that. I think there's there's an opportunity to have that this kind of discussion. I and I didn't mean to to jump in on you, John. Well, and just to piggyback off that, we're quick. I mean, Parkwood Hills still has Bulldog stuff in places, and I I was confused at first. So I I was like, what are we? So my the board then, I guess, by way of discussion here is kind of
directing you to, start out with a plan to standardize or to, develop standardization through the feeder patterns? They basically model the fossil ridge. So what I what I would ask is let me flesh it out and let me bring some thoughts back, before we jump into here's how we're gonna do it. Okay. There are I I will just tell you from from my experiences, there there are little things that we have to navigate, and some historical things that I think we
we owe it to ourselves to to to take the time and think through and have the conversation about just like we're doing now. Just as an example, it was very important that the school that I opened as an assistant principal, was blue and red, red and white, red, white, and blue, and was named the Patriots because that was a specific request of the of the folks who donated that land, and and then gave us some money for upgrades in in
that building and there were that was a that was a that was a big deal back then. And so we there's some of those things that are that we have to navigate because there is a lot of the and and I would say the same thing of a Ridgeview. I don't know. It was a little different scenario, but that was a community decision. They voted on that. They voted on the colors. They voted on, the mascot. So I I I agree that it's, that ultimately we determine a plan and but
I but I agree it's also that community input and this and us understanding, if we do that here here the you know they're obviously knowing knowing what the what the course is and what could be some potential challenges. So I would just ask give me some time to think through those and and bring those back to you guys. Well, and just to use an example, I mean Lone Star, they changed I think three years ago to the Chargers and they're in the Charger Feeder pattern and I mean the principal made that decision.
So, I've yeah. Flush it out, but when I think John was gonna read a list of all the schools that he knows that are not the mascot of their feeder pattern, but it's it sounds like it's a lot, and that's what really worries me. John, were you gonna read a list of the schools that you know? Okay. I think it's actually not that, not that many. I figure out which list I gotta look at here.
So all of Panther, obviously, the the, the falcon family feeder pattern, Timber Creek, obviously falcons, and Timberview, hawks. No. Well, I'll just list them down. Hawks, Titans, Mustangs, Patriots, Eagles, Gators, Gators, Mavericks, Wildcats, Rat Rattlers. So the the Falcon family would have some work to do. Yeah. The travel feeder pattern has eagles, Comanches, Braves, falcons, mustangs, cowboys, stars, wranglers, eagles, radlers.
Travel feeder pattern has a little work to do too, and if somebody's willing to underwrite that then okay. And then, the charger feeder pattern, Everybody's the charger. Central Hillwood, Parkwood, Friendship, and Park Glen are all chargers. Whitley is chargers. Lone Star is chargers. Freedom is Evils. So Sorry. We're the only ones. Chargers are almost there. Yeah. Your Charger Nation is almost there. So it's not I mean, so the ones that are almost there are almost should
just get all the way there. Quite honestly. You know? Yeah. You know, and, like, that list, you might look at it and be like, we've got a lot of work to do. But I just at the end of the day, you've got a a bunch of, you know, you've got the touchdown club or whatever that's called for for Timber Creek. And There you go. You know, how cool would that be, you know, to start out as a little falcon and then be a big falcon when you graduate? I and I do think, to one of the speaker's points, you know, it it always strikes me when you travel outside of this area and, you know, you see the emblems for these districts that have one standardized man mascot.
Right? And I I think, you know, we're heading that way with with the Panthers, the Chargers. It'd be really cool to see that with some of these other other feeder patterns as well. And, obviously, cost is a part of it, but I I think there's some opportunity here. So Yeah. Cost is Yeah. A 100%. I mean and imagine again, I don't I mean, who owns the rights for a lot of the marketing on this? Yeah. I mean, so there's you know, we're talking about slapping up, like, posters on school buses. I mean, that that's an opportunity too. I just know when we don't have money for iPads for one to one and
also the lifespan of iPads. Like, I mean, I totally get having the culture. I totally get being a little falcon all the way up to a big falcon or an Indian little little Indian squall all the way up to a big Indian. I I get that. But like I said previously, I mean, if there's somebody else fit in the bill and the community is okay with it and the principal is okay with it, go for it. But, I mean, no no money needs to come out of our pockets for that just just right now. That's something to go and do. Alright.
The last discussion topic, I put this I put this on, for a reason, because over the last few elections, regardless of where you are in the district, everybody laments about the turnout you know, of a May election being 9%, 10%, and it's and it's quite hand wringing and sad in a way. I've heard people from that microphone say, mister Burt, you weren't elected by the majority
of the, eligible voters in Keller Independent School District. You were elected by a majority of a small minority that came out and voted in the election. Okay, so what? So how do we, and then I started reading about Well, first of all, that the premise of this is that the, last legislative session gave the authority, to school boards, to change their elections, according to the bill, House Bill thirty five forty six
for even years and fourteen ninety four for odd years. So I started doing some research and the research is most people know, is that the voters are more heavily skewed towards, November elections and that those that are in May elections are targeted more by, a certain demographic, whether it's us old folks or whether it's special interest or whether it's whatever.
And the disenfranchised voters typically, according to studies, or those that consider themselves on the fringe or disenfranchised don't do May elections, but they do show up for November elections. And you're shaking your head, but you can do the studies, read the studies. But the point here is to for us to discuss, regardless of persuasion, political persuasion, how do we we talked about increasing the community involvement on our committees.
How do we increase the committee the community involvement in our elections to ensure that whoever is elected is more is represented by more people. And so, anyway, I thought it was worthy of discussion And the point again, the point being is how we increase voter turnout to ensure that whoever is elected, is is representative of a greater part of the district.
And, so anyway, I put that up for discussion and, we'll hear more about it, a little bit later probably. But, anyway, put it up for discussion. And that's all it is. There's not gonna be any action on it. Well, I I based on that, John, I pulled up some statistics. I just did a a chat GPT, Corey, to the rescue, to compare November to May. And to going back to '20 let's see, twenty twenty one May, it was a
14% turnout and then November 2022, a 46% turnout. Again, May 2023, 9% turnout. November 2024, 61% turnout. And then May 2025, 8% turnout. So it's it's pretty historical that the numbers are are vary greatly. Yeah. And one of the things I heard tonight was, well, we can't pass a bond in May then. Well, as if I understand it, and correct me if I'm wrong, all bonds are done in November. Yeah.
I mean, you have to bonds are done in November. They're not New laws passed. Yeah. They're done in November now. But it's not legal to do it in May. You have you have to do them in November. Correct. But the last bond that we did was in September. No. Yeah. You you we were able to It was before the law was changed. Yeah. Yep. Okay. So the idea of of trying to pass a bond in a smaller segment of the And I think Chris made the point earlier, about having a broader If we're gonna pass a bond, let's have a broader community, say yes or no to the
bond. But since it's gotta be done in November, you know, when we do our election, it's basically a moot point. So I think that there's no legitimate reason that anyone can say that having less people show up and make their voice heard is a better idea. There's not a single situation you can say that. So at the end of the day, the data is pretty overwhelming. The November elections, you'll have greater turnout. Based on our research, it's moving forward to 600% more show up in November than
they do in May. So every single election that we've had, we're I'm gonna echo John's point here. We've heard consistently, not enough people vote, not enough people vote, not enough people vote, not enough people vote. Right? Joining back there is one of them. You just took this thumb up. Right? This is a chance that money will vote. It allow it there's a there's a ton of upside to it. Greater voter turnout. Less voter fatigue. I I mean, I hear that all the time. You're knocking doors, starting to go polls. I can't believe we're voting again. We're voting again. We're voting again. So I think I think that's gonna also yield greater voter turnout, and it's gonna
sit and it can potentially save the district money. I'm not sure what that number is, but it would save the district money. So, I think this is a good thing. I can't think of a single negative at all, for it. So I don't really understand any hesitancy on it. The one the one con that I heard from anybody was that it would affect bond rating or potential of the bond election, but that's not possible. And even if it was, it wouldn't matter because there's never a good reason to have less people make the voice heard.
So So on the house bill thirty five forty six actually, so I don't misquote myself. I'll just go ahead and pull those back up. Okay. So that is Senate Bill. Okay. So House Bill thirty five forty six. So this particular bill is pertaining to our terms. Is there anything happening to our terms? So this is talking about changing the length of the term of its trustees.
So are we there's two parts to it. The one part is saying to move it to November and then the second part may adopt a resolution changing trustee terms. Right. So, I mean, are we doing anything to the terms? I think it it's possible. Okay. It's possible to get on to to an even even cycle, quite honestly. So let's tailor that out. What would that look like? So if we so and thank you for bringing that up, Heather because that was another point. So in house bill thirty five forty six, it's talking about the terms and then
also adopting a resolution to move to November elections. Then we get to senate bill and it talks to moving to November elections, but it has to be in the odd numbered years. So which part of this would we adopt? So it's it's odd number of years and then even numbered years with November elections because it coincides with presidential elections. So it it's two different ones because if you were to do just one and not the other, then you would you would adult you would ultimately be changing you
would have to change your terms. Whereas if you adopt both, you don't have to change your terms. Okay. So let's let's hammer that out. What does that look like? So is it you and John get an extra six months? We move, like, next year to twenty twenty six to November? Technically, everyone will get an extra six months. Right. So we'll hammer that out. So do we do we next year in May, do we go ahead and call a special election and allow our community to vote for you guys to do another six months and then you would run.
No. Who says I'm running again? No. I'm I'm just I'm just saying let's hammer it out. I'm just saying you're running on a special election. There won't be as I've if I've as I've understood it, and we'll learn more about it, here in a little while, with, you know, with with legal guidance. I'll put it that way in an exact session. But there would be no special election in May if this goes forward. There would be no election in May, period. So everybody's terms would just continue until November for those that wanted to.
Any board member can resign or whatever, and then you fill a vacancy. The normal way policy says you fill a vacancy a vacancy. But then so the two bills kinda coincide, Dan, I think, to answer your question. So the one deals with even number years. And if we partner with one of our municipalities to do odd number here, if they go also November elections and they and we all go annual, then it's just an annual cycle like we do, but just starting in November.
If we can't if we don't partner, if we don't partner with a municipal partner, then the default would be biennial elections, in which case, and I'm not saying we go down that path. I'm not because then you go four three. And then there's we'd have to get guidance on how that all works. That's way in the weeds. This is simply talking about not the, we'll learn about more of the how to but this is more of a conversation about increasing the voter turnout in our community
to ensure that those that get elected represent a broader perspective, section, cross section of the community, it it serves. 10%. You know, we're we're elected by, you know, 10% of overall turnout, but the overall percent within that 10% is how we got here. And that just doesn't seem right, whether I'm sitting here or not sitting here. Yeah. And whether you're sitting there or not sitting here. But what's driving people to the polls in the local elections is our is our
local issues as a school board. Right? When you go to the polls in November, the school boards, municipalities are way, way down the list of priorities. That may be true. That may be true, Randy, but still local issues are driving only 10%. 10% across I don't know how many doors we knocked or how many doors you knocked, how many other doors got knocked. I mean, we've got a ton of eligible voters. We didn't knock every door, obviously, in in our district. But, John, I would just say to to Randy's point here, that assumes that there's
not voter education and all this other stuff that happens during a May election cycle, that wouldn't happen in November. And I I don't I don't buy that. I mean, there are a number of school districts across the state that do this, and, I suspect and I've not heard or seen anywhere online where the complaint is because we moved it to November, but somehow we're not getting the same vested voters? We don't really have any research on how this is gonna impact us, and I haven't really had any voter input saying I wanna change to, November elections.
I've had no feedback. I've had two emails, which I think all of you got, which said no. Don't do that. I've had zero zero public input to say, let's move this to November. Let me talk in just a second here. May election in the local area, May elections, the local ISDs, Northwest ISD, Carroll ISD, Great Line, Colville ISD, Fort Worth ISD, Azle ISD, White Settlement, Arlington, Alito ISD, Eagle Mountain Saginaw, Hurst Euless Bedford ISD, Birdville ISD, I could go on.
The only one I can find anywhere close, well, I I can't even find one that's close where they're having November. So if there was some big magic thing that happened in November, we'd already be doing that. Those school districts would already be doing that. I think we're doing the system the way it is is because it works to bring people who are educated in and vote the local issues that affect the schools. I think those are your most educated voters. They're gonna give you the best result. And I think that when you change the length of terms of the trustees after
we've been elected to three year terms, that violates the public trust because they elected us a three year terms. If we arbitrarily say, well, I'm just gonna make make my term three and a half years by by, you know, a majority vote. I decided I'm gonna have a three and a half year term. That violates the public trust. We're trying to rebuild public trust right now. Because it's it's at a low ebb. Listen. Short term though. This you gotta look long term. This there's there's a three and a half three and a half length term for
the short term, and then it will correct itself. Well, I think the comment on the voter is interesting. So what so you're so you're arguing that the voter in November is not as smart as the as the voter in May. I didn't say they're not as smart. I said that they're less educated on the issues, typically. Well, statistics show that your May, voter when you have May and November elections, so statistics show that your May voter is locally involved, locally aware of what is happening. Typically your November voter is more state and national minded, and I can attest to
that. I was never I was not necessarily a May voter until I kind of started getting involved, like, after I first met you. I was I was a November voter. I was That's an education issue, right? So you became informed because there was an election in May. If those elections were moved in November, the same education process that that got you to where you were when you walked into the voting booth and knew who you vote for would play out in November to somehow say that that your electorate is somehow has the inability to understand the issues in November versus May, I I just
I I don't think there's any statistical evidence for that. I I'm not the one arguing that point. I will say that I do feel I I I don't care if it's May or November. I statistically, yes. More people come out in November, and we have to pass bonds in November anyways. So I I'm actually coming from a totally different perspective on this. I think and to a point that Brandy had made just a minute ago is that we were elected for three years. And so if we're going to move something, like I stated earlier, I would suggest
that we do it's gonna be more expensive, but I I suggest we do a special election and let our community decide if, you know, the first people that come upon this, whether it be John and Chris, Chris obviously is not running again, but or you and Heather, If if we do want to extend everybody's license I said it wasn't running again. Okay. So whatever. So Okay. If if we want to extend the six six months on everybody, then allow that first one to kick off and do the special election, and then it rolls that
way. I I think the timing of this Is what is causing people to pause and scratch their head and and ask why, especially just with everything that we've walked through. I know that we've talked about tonight that we're we're trying to get more united in our district, not divided. And the comments and the questions and the emails and phone calls that I've received is what is really driving this. Is it literally just voter turnout, or is it the fact that we want extra
time on our on our terms? And I don't know. That's why I said let's hammer it out. Let's not hear it. Believe they're even asking it. Oh, I no. I can't believe they're actually asking that question. But if you have a special election in May, then that person that you're electing in May will have six months plus the three year term as well. So or you're doing a special election in May and then doing another election for the same seat in November. Is that what you're saying? Yeah. I've that's only worth $40,000. Okay. So so so here's the thing. I received the same emails we all did, and I appreciate that the people responded.
And the the the the same talking points, both of them. And one of the things that both stated was, budget education. That was one of the big points is that we, had a board member came in November versus May that there's a concern, being educated and involved in the budget. Well, that's just factually inaccurate because a board member who comes in May has no say in the budget they have to vote in next month. If a board member comes in November, they have a say in the entire budget proposal up in the time they have to vote on it in June. I've said that from day one.
The the timing of a board member coming involved and being asked to vote on a budget they had no say in or any time to understand or walk through is completely crazy. You know, it's been that way for a long time. I can't other than some personal issue that some people may have with me or John, because it's really what it is. It's a personal issue. There's no factual issue that you can use to argue against elections being better in November. No feelings. Yes. There is a factual issue. What's the factual issue? The factual issue is that the voters who come in on May elections have educated
themselves on the issues to a greater extent on local board elections. But than they do for the national election. Are those same people ignorant? They're not stupid. I'm saying that they have educated themselves on those issues. Okay. I think higher voter turnout informed about the the local school board issues when they come to vote. Are you telling me those people aren't gonna vote no matter, Chris? I mean, I I think, again, I think higher voter turnout and whether a voter a voter is informed are not mutually exclusive, Randy, and that's what you're arguing. And the reality is the same education process that happens in the in the May election is gonna bear itself out in in in November.
Well, the I I don't understand that the rest should do this right now because this isn't if I read the bill, it's not due until 12/31/2030. So just don't rush to do this. We can we can have public input on this. We should have public input. This is a major decision for the board. We should have public input. You think the feedback on this? Your opinion is, do you think the public's input is, like, we don't want more people voting? I don't know what their input is. That's not my place to judge. I want to hear what they have to say without prejudging them.
I think in any situation, having more people coming to vote, which is hearing the people's voice is a better answer. I disagree. Well, I wanna hear what the people have. I'm I'm I'm the next one. 182,000 people in school district. Which is why they should all come up and vote as many as possible. I agree with you. Then why why do we only see 10% of them in May or less? They won't be any less educated in November if they did their homework in the same homework they do in May for local issues would be this to Charles's point
the same, information that they would study for November 11. And we don't really have any scientific data on who is more educated, less educated. We don't have any any such a big thing on the cost. But you're making that point. You're making the point. You you may not call it the same, but you're making the point that the voter in November is less informed and less possibly less educated on the issues than than that voter if they showed up in May. Yeah. I don't So Well, that's anecdotal evidence that I've read. Yeah. I I agree.
So let's study it. Let's let's get some hard numbers on it. Let's get public feedback. Well, we can about the cost issue for a second. Use your opportunities, as we all do to get public feedback. I've I've got emails, supporting it more so. I've got some that don't wanna do it, and some that says, oh, we can't do a bond in May. Well, the point is you can't do a bond in May. Well, you're gonna affect the budget. Well, to Chris's point, when we were elected in '23, we we inherited a budget that was already predetermined.
That cake was already baked. We didn't have any input for budget for almost, six months, which would have put it in in the November, November, December when doctor Allison and team and now doctor Wilson and team are are putting numbers together to where they start having the community input. So, anyway, we're not gonna decide it here. It was just a a point of discussion and, you know, and, it's good. That's all. Listen, I have a question for you. So is there a cost savings if we were to switch it from May to
November? Because I know that was one of the questions that, somebody in audience with individuals had. So we do not believe there is. So the they used to charge based on-site and by used to it, they did Stearn County. So they used to charge based on-site and now they charge based on its proportional. And so it's the number of voters you have. So we looked at it, and and we don't believe there would be any savings. It would be it would be a wash. But if you had a board election in November and a bond election in November,
that would be the same cost because it's all ISD led. So if it's a bond year, there's potentially a savings. So that would just say on, like, a regular year. Sure. Switching from So just regular. So so I'm specifically speaking to if you moved from the board election independent of a bond. So but it it's my understanding though that all elections share in that cost at that time. Right? Because our thing our thing is that they changed it. They changed it completely.
So they changed it. So now we pay based on if you remember last year, we had to there was a budget amendment that we brought to you, that added we shifted some money over about 35,000. Yeah. I remember that. Yeah. That was that was Tarrant County that they shifted how they charge for voters, for for elections. Yeah. But, I I mean, I'd be interested to see. I mean, if that's the answer, that's the answer. But to my understanding, it was based on the actual site. So, like, if you had multiple different, avenues being set at that spot, then you
had a cost for that site and it was gonna share it out accordingly. To be. Yeah. So now it's a profit center form? It's last year, it was about 35,000 more than it was a year before. So it's profit center form? It was last year. It was $35,000 more than it was a year before. So even if it's, even if it's budget neutral. So even if it's budget neutral I'm sorry To Chelsea's point. Yes, that's correct. It would be budget neutral. It doesn't save us any money to Chelsea's budget. Let's assume budget issue then we're then we're discussing whether or not we should increase
the voter turnout or not increase the voter turnout. Yeah. That's what I see for me. That is definitely a valid point. Voter turnout is way lower in May than it will be in November, especially when there's big ticket items through presidency, things of that nature. Another thing that obviously we all have a fundamental, difference of opinion on is, is it, more efficient to have somebody come in before the summer months, and essentially have two months before that budget is approved to really come up to speed, you know, give any sort of feedback if they want to, even though, as John would put
it, the the cake is baked at that point, or if it's for them to come in November and, you know, we assign campuses for starting of December 1 and things of that. I mean, all of that. It would just have to be hammered out and there's gonna be differences of opinion on that. And I'm I'm not trying to agitate or poke the bear, but I I know that we've all received saw that. I know we've all received emails, and I know that there's many that I've received where it's just me on it, it's not the rest of the board with people
expressing concerns on a multitude of different things. It's not just pertaining to this, but, I I'm not trying to be rude when I say that because of what our district has walked through, there is giving a lot of people pause as to the reasoning behind this, and that has to be something that we have to face head on and say, okay, we understand that. There's a lack of trust right now. Then let's go ahead and make sure we as a board fully understand what this means, what it looks like, because and this is something I even told Corey on
the phone earlier. I said, so we're gonna literally talk about what ifs when we don't even know how to interpret this or what this would actually look like because I had frantic phone calls today thinking that John and Chris were gonna not have an election until 2027. So, it's just that's not Okay. But, again, we we also can't, like, listen to frantic phone calls with speculation of things that just don't exist. Exactly. So I'm like, that's why it was But we do know what's what happened. What would it would we would have higher voter turnout. The election would be moved to November 2026.
Yes. Okay. We know that. There's there's there's no guessing on that. Exactly. And, well, so but and and again, you have to understand when I mean, these are companion bills. So it's like you can look at one of them. You can look at senate bill and get freaked out when you see just odd. And then when you're looking at house bill and you see that, oh, this has to do with the term and it also has to do with November, but it also can be even. So it's like, okay. Well, what does that mean as far as, like, what we're gonna do? So when the general public is seeing the agenda and they're going to look at these items and they start to panic because they don't understand what it means, and
then we're gonna have a discussion up here and we don't fully understand what that's gonna look like. I mean, I had questions, that's why I asked. So And I mean, that would be a point of it if I had questions. That would be a point of it elicited in discussion or work session or whatever the title is. Right? So we're we're having a discussion about about this. Right? So I I I guess I'm a little confused about folks worrying or whatever because at the end of the day, it was pretty clearly listed on the agenda what this was. Yeah. No. It it's clearly listed on the agenda, but when the general public goes and reads
the the bills themselves, there is okay. Well, which one is it? Like, what what does that mean? What does that look like? He's saying is that's the purpose of having the discussion Right. Is to hash all these things out. Right. That's what we're doing. Yeah. Even a good idea, and I don't concede that November elections are a good idea for the school board, has to be timed correctly. You can have a good idea and terrible timing, and this is terrible timing. The school district's in the process of rebuilding trust. We're talking about potentially extending the the terms of of some school board members to
three and a half years, another six months without public input simply by a vote. Okay. Listen. I hope that we don't put this on the agenda. So let's let's let's let's let's go back. We can keep going down that path all we want. The reality is we can rebuild Don't put this on the this whole idea of rebuilding public trust on an absolutely false narrative because we I've I've let that little that talking point go on and on and on and on so many times over the previous months on this dais, and that's just not the case. Okay? If if we got to a point I've used the term frivolous lawsuit a long
time. They they were losing one. They stayed it because they were about to lose. They probed another court. If they'd let that case finish out, then the public would know the truth because we do. So while it's all about building public trust It's a point that we're in a privilege. I get that. But the reality is That's too present. We've got enough topic. We've gotten off topic. I was talking about rebuilding public trust. He mentioned it. Yeah. Because that seems to always it seems to be tied to this. So it may be on topic or I think it's on topic because one of the arguments against it is because public trust is, somehow been evaded or whatever you
wanna call it. But this is this is a bigger this is bigger than than me and Chris being on for six months. Give me a break. I mean, how that is that's, what's the topic about? We're talking about, again, where we're talking about increasing the opportunity for more voters to elect the elected officials. There's more elected officials across the state between school boards and city councils and mayors than anybody else.
So this is an opportunity, perhaps, to, again, reach to individuals to make sure that the seven people sitting here are truly representative of the broader and expanded part of our district for those people who would not come out in May for whatever their reason, but would come out in November to vote for their whatever they wanted to vote for. That's all it is. I don't care.
I don't care. We don't put this on November or December agenda. Please don't do that. I don't I don't care about the six months. I really I really don't care. Somebody said, well, Bert wants a power trip. I could care less about the power trip. You think this is fun being up here and getting blasted all the time from the thing? No. But I'll do it for another six months if it's in the better interest of the of the of the district. If we can get more people out to vote, that's my only that's my only concern. No hidden agenda. I don't care about the six months. It would just come with the territory.
So I'm gonna say about that. Alright. The, last thing, we'll go to scheduling. I thank everybody for their input by the way. Good discussion. We're ready now to go over scheduling. Doctor Wilson? So, November 20, we have our next regular board meeting on November 24 through the twenty eighth. The district will be closed for Thanksgiving and then we will be back at it again on December 18, before we head out for Christmas break. Okay. Thank you. Can I add something on scheduling? I had a question.
If we could maybe all commit to agreeing to do some dates on team of eight. There have been 18 dates proposed and we have not been able to find a single one. It's required. We need to do it. There are multiple reasons why we need to do it, and I would just like to ask that we all try to look at our calendars with the next set of dates that come out and actually make it a priority that we get this done, please. Fair enough. Point noted. The trustees will now go into executive session for the purpose permitted by the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas government code section five five one dot zero zero one through
five five one dot one four six, section five five one dot zero seven one, consultation with attorney, section five five one zero seven two, deliberations regarding real estate properties, following meeting with JLL Fort Worth Real Estate Company, Section five five one dot zero seven four, personnel matters, superintendent goals. Section five five one dot zero seven six, deliberate 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 complaints. In section 551.0821, personally identifiable information about public school students. Time now is 09:50. There will be no action following the executive session other than adjournment. We are back from executive session at 11:10. If this is the end of our agenda for the evening, I'll take a motion
to adjourn. Motion made. Second. No discussion? No. All you mean discussion? All in favor? Seven o. Thank you. Let's have a good evening.