We're good to go. Alright. Well, good morning, and thank you all for joining us today on Zoom. And sub g application process. We realize that this is an arduous process and that it's aimed at ensuring high quality educational students options for students. Normally, we would go around the room and introduce everyone, but for the sake of our our virtual component here, I'm going to take the liberty of announcing who is all on the panel from the TEA staff. So joining us, we do have Marion Shetty, associate commissioner of authorizing and policy,
Britney Glenn, new schools manager, John Garland, new school specialist, Sarah Khan, new school specialist, David Marks representing financial compliance, Pijat Sathnurayan also representing Financial Compliance, Michelle Merrick, Emergent Bilingual, Bridget Remish, Legal, Kawanda Riley, High Quality Instructional Materials, Ed O'Neil, Special Education, and Lori Merrill from Special Education. And my name is Valerie Trevino, proud to be director of charter school authorizing here with TEA. Alright. You will have an opportunity once I set norms for the call to introduce the
entire Baker Ripley team as well. Alright. So today is Thursday, February 12. It is 11AM, and we are interviewing Baker Ripley Pathways Academy for Baker Ripley Pathway Academy. We ask that all participants remain on mute today when you are not talking and only come off of mute to ask a question or talk to answer a question from our panelists. We have set aside one hour for this capacity interview. Our agendas today will consist of starting off with introductions from our back Baker Ripley pathway team and then a ten minute overview of your proposed public charter school.
The remaining time will be used for our questions from our panelists to the Baker Workley team. The commissioner will make a final determination based on your interview today and the strength of your application. It is our hope that your application stands on its own merits and will not have any contingencies. If there are items that must be addressed to the staff of the Division of Charter School authorizing, we'll contact you to address any items of concern or omission. At this time, we ask that you please introduce yourself with your name and your role only. Good morning.
Ernest Lewis, and I'm a Baker Ripley Pathways Academy board chair. And I'm gonna pass it off to Kirk. Good morning. I'm Kirk Hromel, chief financial officer at Baker Ripley and a member of the Pathway Academies board and Christina Rodriguez. Good morning. Christina Rodriguez, Area Director for Baker Ripley and Board Member for Pathway Academy. Angela. Good morning. Angela Johnson, interim superintendent for Baker Ripley's Pathways Academy. I'm Kate Berenbaum, the governance and compliance adviser to Pathways Academy, Academy, and I'm Baker Ripley's chief operating officer and chief legal officer.
Good morning, everyone. My name is Vanessa Ramirez. I'm a Baker Ripley employee and an advisor focused on the Pathways Academy strategy. Joe? Good morning, everybody. Thank you again for this opportunity. My name is Joe Fuentes, and I am an adviser for Pathways Academy. Joel? Thank you. Good morning, everybody. My name is Joel Munoz, and I am the superintendent of Baker Ripley Community Schools, and I'm serving as an advisor for Baker Ripley Pathways Academy. Right. Perfect. I believe that was all the members of your team. Did anyone did we miss anyone? Alright. So you will now have ten minutes to provide the panel an overview of your
proposed public charter school. We will start the timer when your overview begins, and we will then announce when time is up. Please bring your interview to a close at that time. We will then begin with questions after after your ten minute overview is over. Please know that today is not a time to expand or add anything add anything onto your application. With that said, you now may begin your ten minute presentation. Good morning. I'm Ernest Lewis again. I have twenty five years of experience in adult education serving as an executive fundraiser as well as programmer. Definitely wanted to start just with why we're doing this work and why it's important
to me. So it just goes back to education to where my grandfather, who was born in rural Louisiana, who could not read or write, and during that time, education was not a priority, working was. And then my dad finished school early, and then my mom was an educator. So I saw the realities of what education can do and the opportunities, and I also saw the limitations for not having that. And fast forward to Houston, we're looking at an opportunity in East Aldine where we have a lot of thousands of of individuals and residents who are looking for that second chance of a high
school diploma. So this model is built for folk in real life looking to actually have over socioeconomic mobility and to actually have persistence and completion towards education goals beyond the classroom. So what I'm gonna do is pass it on to Vanessa to talk a little bit around our landscape. Thank you, Ernest. So, yes, Pathways Academy is positioned central readiness activities already in motion. This is reflected in a fully, developed execution plan rather than a conceptual proposal. The governance structure has also been established. We've repurposed an existing five zero one c three.
We updated the name and completed all of the requirements with the Texas secretary of state and the IRS. All of this, we believe, provides immediate operational stability and ensures compliance from day one. East Aldine remains a priority service area due to its significant need. Of the approximate 90,000 residents in East Aldine, nearly sixty nine percent of adults lack a high school diploma. Thus, our school model has been intentionally designed to serve this population through an adult focused instructional program, flexible scheduling,
and targeted supports aligned with TEA expectations for adult learners. Christina? Thanks so much. As Vanessa said, our East Aldine community deserves a diploma granting adult high school that recognizes the realities adults face and is built on the trust that the community has placed in us. Our board and advisory team bring deep experience across Texas education, finance, legal oversight, charter compliance, workforce development, and community implementation, exactly the expertise needed for a strong and stable launch. Our governance approach is intentional.
We have clear lines of accountability, strong oversight structures, and a planned pipeline for adding independent board members to ensure long term stability and continuity. Thank you. Ernest? So we don't wanna talk a little bit around the board, which they are actually responsible for setting the strategic direction and actually assessing and evaluating the superintendent, and the performance quality of the charter itself. And then also we have advisors who are subject matter experts that are gonna be working with us with legal and partnerships and operations, and finance as well. And then also too, we have the staff that's really leading the day to day work.
So I'm gonna pass it on to Kate to talk a little bit around the entity. Thank you, Ernest. As I mentioned, I'm Kate Birnbaum. I'm an advisor of compliance and governance for Pathways Academy. I've been at Baker Ripley for more than eight years, and in that capacity, capacity, I've supported our full education portfolio, which includes our Head Start program, our school district, our school and charter governments, and Baker Ripley's education committee. So Baker Ripley has more than twenty years of experience supporting our community school district, while maintaining appropriate separation between the district and the agency.
We know how to do this well. We are also a large agency with a robust administrative departments. And what that means is that Pathway Academies will benefit from those strong support systems that are already in place from day one, including accounting, human resources, facilities, IT, and compliance departments already in place. And this established structure allows Pathways Academy to operate independently while still having the stability and structure of a proven administrative backbone behind it. Now I'll pass it on to doctor Johnson.
Thank you. Good morning. Our school design is built on four core pillars that TEA requires and TEA looks for when they're, focusing on adult models for education. And that includes contextualized instruction, integrated workforce pathways, comprehensive supportive services, and alumni coaching that extends far beyond graduation to support those long term outcomes. The entire model that we've created is intentionally structured around adult learners and the realities of their lives. We offer rolling enrollment,
individualized graduation plans, and persistence coaching so that adults can balance work, their family responsibilities, and school while steadily progressing towards completion. All of these elements will work together to create a stable adult centered instructional environment for our learners and set a clear foundation for the curriculum section, for the curriculum, section that I will share a little bit about now. Our students will advance through mastery based progression moving forward only when they demonstrate competency. This will allow adults to accelerate where they are strong and receive the targeted support
where where it is needed. Our curriculum and our approach will be TEA, aligned with TEA expectations for rigor and accountability. Our curriculum is Texas based. It is TEEX aligned and delivered through a blended learning model, and it is supported by universal design for learning. This means that our learners will get the individualized support that they need to work towards their goals. Workforce readiness is a strong component of our model, and it is intentionally integrated throughout the instruction to strengthen applicability and relevance. Instruction for all of our students will be grounded in adult learning principles so that
it is relevant. It helps our neighbors to achieve agency. It recognizes their lived experience, and then our students will, of course, receive timely feedback so that they could make improvements and we can support them along the way. I will now turn it over to Joe. Thank you, doctor Johnson. Employer engagement is intentionally built into the academic and TEA CTE model to ensure alignment with high demand occupations, consistent work based learning exposure, as well as structured placement support. The school leverages Baker Ripley's established regional network to secure high quality partners.
Current partners include Lone Star College, Metro, Avance Aldine ISD, and the Newhouse Education Center, each supporting pathways, training access, or workforce connections. Adult learners receive a clear and coherent trajectory from diploma attainment to employment supported by advising CTE alignment and partnerships that connect instruction to real market opportunities. Kurt? Thank you, Joe. From a finance perspective, we build a conservative plan, conservative being the key world, where it takes us from 75 enrollment in year one up to two seventy five in year five.
That associated ADA takes our revenue from $2,100,000 up to $5,900,000 What I'd really like to emphasize is we're not starting at zero. We at Baker Ripley have been providing financial IT facility support for many entities and organizations over the years, one of them being our Baker Ripley Community School. We do believe we have in place the controls and infrastructure to be very successful. So with that, I'll pass it over to Joelle Newnham, our advisor for operations. Good morning, everybody.
We know that accountability is going to be a critical part of our work, and we are very excited about this opportunity. We're ready to launch with a strong team with very clear expectations, effective data systems, and ensuring that we have high quality instruction with high quality instructional materials as well. We're ready to provide wrap around supports to make sure that our students are fully supported so that they can take advantage of this opportunity. We're not only ready for this launch, but we're very prepared and have been very strategic and intentional with the work that
we have done leading us to here. So again, thank you for this opportunity, and I'll turn it I'll turn it over back to our board chair. Thank you, Al. So this concludes our presentation, and we do thank you all for the opportunity. And also too, this is an extension of the strategic direction of our parent company to all to actually expand our education continuum, for individuals so that they can achieve their aspirations. So thank you for your time. All right. Thank you for your presentation. I have one question before we will launch into our panelist questions. So before we get started with our panel questions,
I do want to verify the number of campuses that you plan to serve and your maximum enrollment. So to ensure that we have reflected the sponsoring entity's request, you are seeking to serve a maximum student body in year five of 275 students at two campuses. Is this correct? That's correct. Yes. Alright. Perfect. Okay. So we will now transition to our panel questions, and I have your first question. So given your prior experience operating a charter, we're interested in understanding how that experience informed your structural decisions for this charter school.
So with that understanding, how does the subchapter g governance structure align with your overall mission and vision of your nonprofit organization? Sure. So we have basically so that structure will be a part of our strategic plan. So we had a strategic plan for twenty four to twenty six, and education was one of our key cornerstones of our work. So it was our actually, our subchapter g charter, which we were working through k through eighth. But then also too, we did have Head Start and now Adult Education, which is our existing program. So the Adult Charter will be an extension of that work to where we have
that continuum of care and education. So it is a priority of ours and a key initiative that's identified in our strategic plan. Great. Thank you. And I will now pass it off to Britney with our next question. Thank you so much and good morning. So both the application and the board here today attest to Ms. Johnson's qualifications to lead Berkeley Pathways Academy. You've indicated that Ms. Johnson will be serving within an interim capacity, subject to a six month evaluation. Can you please elaborate on your evaluation timeline? Is it six months upon receiving your contract or six months into the academic school
year? So it'll be six months into the contract because during the interim phase, we're doing prelaunch work. So we definitely wanna look into that and then make sure that we are consistent, for the launch and then have that continuity. Perfect. So this is to the board. So can you discuss your transition plans? Should miss Johnson not continue in her role after the six month period. How do you plan to maintain that continuum of leadership at the school while you search for a new superintendent? So with the continuum or continuity of services is that we're looking at actually having that position so for the interim phase,
it will be for possibly for the year to the to the launch. So at the six month mark, we are going to be posting that role and then creating a short list of candidates. For the continuity of that, we also are looking at succession planning as we're looking at leaders there. Also too in our advisory roles, we do have individuals who have superintendent experience that will be assisting with the work, so we are very confident that we can continue. Valerie, back to you. Alright. Our next question goes to our legal team. Bridget, take it away. Hi. Good morning. It appears that your board members are all compensated employees of Baker Ripley.
Please discuss further the structure of Baker Ripley as a parent organization and Baker Ripley Pathways Academy. And how did you determine that board members would be solely from Baker Ripley? Okay. So for so for the board's compensation, it's basically we have three staff right now, which is Kirk, myself, and Christina. So with that, we are actually volunteering our time to sit on the board. We also are looking at a conflict of interest questionnaires and disclosures. For the overall Board strategy, we are looking to recruit an additional two to four additional Board members that will
not be employees. So from that, we're looking for folk with particular expertise in education, workforce development. So we are looking for education, workforce development. So we are looking for folks that also too can represent the community, so a potential community resident. We have had a short list of individuals from, Houston ISD, Aldine ISD, as as well as YMCA, and then Parks and Recreation who are interested in serving on the board. And definitely what we are looking at from that particular board is to have to execute the term limits and things of that nature as well. But for the for the interim and startup, we did launch with existing board members that were staff of Baker Ripley.
Okay. Thank you. Valerie? Right. Thank you. Our next question is coming from Sarah. Perfect. We're just gonna pivot a bit to enrollment projections. So on page 50 of your application, you project to enroll 75 students in year one. I just wanna talk me through about what is the contingency plan if year one enrollments fall below the projected 75 students? And what immediate operational and budgetary adjustments would you make, implement in order to make sure that you remain viable? I can, I can take this, but doctor Johnson, Ernest, please jump in as as, as needed? So I think, key, is to be proactive about monitoring those,
enrollment and persistence, risks, in advance so we can identify any challenges before they become a huge budgetary issue. Our approach is to maintain a stable model that's built on conservative enrollment assumptions and scale only when persistence, patterns have been proven. If enrollment targets, were to fall, we would immediately strengthen the referral pathways that we've established with some of our different partners. We would leverage the number of neighbors that Baker Ripley is proud to serve. Just last year, we served close to 500,000
neighbors across the region. We will continue with those targeted outreach strategies and continue to offer rolling enrollment opportunities. At the same time, though, we are gonna be looking at persistence. And so while we will ensure that our mobility mentors are meeting with their, you know, students at a minimum of a month, if we notice that persistence is slipping, we would, increase those coaching touch points to ensure that, you know, any barriers to maximizing the opportunity are being identified and thus addressed, whether it's through internal programs or through any of the programs and services offered by
our partners. And Kirk, if you want me to jump in, I will speak to any budgetary pieces as well. Should any shortfalls remain, we will, we'll contain cost by phasing out, nonessential spending. We would sequence, staffing growth to confirm the, enrollment, and we would leverage, Baker Repley's shared services, while not, while, not compromising those nonnegotiable support services that students need. Bottom line here is that we're gonna respond quickly. We're gonna protect instructional quality, and we're gonna maintain compliance while scaling responsibly. Thank you, miss Ramirez. Valerie, back to you.
Go. Okay. Thank you. If I can add that the adult education team has a long history of being successful with recruiting efforts and having to pivot, when we don't meet those recruiting targets. So we are very familiar with managed and open enrollment and reaching out to our partners again and, readjusting our messaging to ensure that we're reaching the right, population in our intended targets. Thank you. Thank you for that. Valerie, back to you. Alright. And moving on, John, you have the next question. Great. I had a quick question about you all's,
instructional model. Let me get to it. So sorry. You all mentioned that you're going to do the, dual dual approach, with respect to the, paper and, digital curriculum. So I think my question is more about, just instructional, delivery. So if I'm a student there, what can I expect in terms of how long, I'm sitting in front of a teacher, teacher led instruction, versus maybe interfacing more digitally? Can you talk to me a little bit about, you know, the time difference between those two? Sure. Thank you so much for that question. Our our design for the program is built around the reality of the lives of
our of our neighbors and students that we serve, and that requires us to have great flexibility. Part of so what it will look like on an average day is a student will have, up to, we're we're projecting at least four hours of in person teacher directed instruction. But certainly, again, allowing our neighbors to have the flexibility should life happen and they need to engage learning, through the, LMS system. We will utilize Bright Thinker, which is a Texas based curriculum, and it allows for that flexibility.
So our program will be open and students will have access to direct direct instruction, teacher led instruction Monday through Friday. But, certainly, we understand that our neighbors would need some flexibility. The the curriculum that we will use will allow us to support learners even at a distance if they have to maybe perhaps, attend more hours online completing, modules online as opposed to attending in person. But the data will allow us to be able to support them even at a distance and to be able to modify the instruction and the materials that they have
access to so that we can support them as they move through the modules. So the so the baseline expectation, I think what you're saying is that if if you all enroll me, the baseline expectation would be that I would, come to school every day, sit in the class, receive that instruction. But there's some flexibility there. If whatever reason something happens, I can still continue that through your virtual pathways, your digital pathways with, okay. Cool. Awesome. Yes. Absolutely. And the mobility mentor, will be supporting the learners and understanding, is it a situational barrier? Is it something that's minimal that's preventing them from attending class in person?
Our hope is that they're that the students will be able to attend more in person than not so that we can work with them on removing those barriers and wraparound supports that will be available to them. So our goal is to have the students in person as often and as much as possible. Okay. Thank you so much, Angela. Valerie, back to you. Alright. And moving to Britney with the next question. Thanks. So effective academic programs rely on clear accountability mechanisms to monitor instructional effectiveness. So given that framework, with the selected curriculum that you just mentioned, if it does not yield the intended academic outcomes,
what contingency plans are in place to address performance gaps and ensure student achievement? Thank you for that question. So there are several things that we have in place, besides having, Joel Munoz, who is our superintendent of our community schools and some of the best practices that he'll be able to share about the work that they do there around accountability. We have designed a model that is very sensitive to students' performance and their outcomes. We will meet with teachers on a weekly basis. We will have monthly data meetings with our data coordinator so that we are tracking
data data with our from our students and their performance. Bright Thinker is a very robust program, and the administration side of the, LMS system really gives us great data so that we can monitor students' learning and be responsive, whether that's, creating additional lessons where we're bringing, you know, perhaps, additional tutors or supports to the learners or being able to provide additional just in time instruction pullouts outs perhaps in the classroom so that we can ensure that learners have access to the guidance that they need.
Well, would you like to add anything? Yes. Absolutely. We we don't we don't want any surprises. With the with the instructional materials that we're going with, like doctor Johnson mentioned, it will provide, like, real time data for us so that we can make those adjustments quickly. So we'll be paying very close attention to those data points that we're gating getting. We will disaggregate the data based on subpopulations as well and make sure that our teachers are working with the administrators to make any necessary instructional, adjustments to provide targeted support for our kids. If intervention is necessary,
tier two or tier three based on the data that we have, we are ready to, ensure that those supports are in place. Thank you, Valerie. Alright. And moving to John with the next question. Alright. I had a question about your mobility mentors. You went to great lengths in the application to discuss how important they are and rightfully so. But I did have a question about your staffing structure of those mobility mentors. So if this doesn't make sense, just please help me. I just told me to clarify. But, in interpreting your staffing structure, it says that your mobility mentors are not going to exceed every one mentor per
50 students. Okay? So when you're one, you've only hire or you plan to hire one mobility mentor if I looked at that correctly. But you want 75 students. So that's that that gives you 25 student surplus. Right? So two part question. First part is did I interpret that correctly? And if so, what additional supports you're gonna have for that one mobility mentor to handle that additional, you know, surplus of 25 students? Thank you for that. And we did notice that. So our goal truly is to have the one mobility mentor support supporting the 75
students. We understand that TA's guidelines or recommendation is no more than 100 students to a life coach. So we so I hope that answers that part of the question. What was your second part, please? No. I think you answered it. I just wanted to kind of get some clarity between in your application. You said it would be one to 50 ratio. But since you all have more than 50 students, hopefully, in year one, how that person was going to handle that additional load. But I think you answered the question. If I just may add, we also, discussed the role of the enrollment and support services manager within our narrative. And so, you know, while we anticipate rolling enrollment,
if we were to have all 75 students starting in August, which let's manifest that, we would love that. We would then, assume that the enrollment and support services manager would take a small case though to ensure that the quality of those coaching interventions, aren't compromised. Just as a quick follow-up then. So if you plan to implement the help of that particular person, I believe they manage the mobility mentors. Correct? Correct. So what training would they receive? Again, if they're gonna pick up that additional load, what training would they have to do that? Do you want yeah.
Go ahead. I'll take that. Thank you. So, being, such a small team, even now with our adult education, team, we're all trained in the coaching framework, and that framework is is EMPATH. And so, even our classroom teachers are trained in impact because they are the front line of support for our students in the classroom. So our, our enrollment and special services manager would be able to, take advantage of that training and be able to support students if we should have some that, are not able to be supported because of capacity reasons by the mobility mentor. Awesome. Thank you so much, Valerie. That's all I had.
Thank you. Alright. We're next going to get into finance. I'm gonna pass it off to Pijo with our next question. So your budget, depends heavily on grants and that are not not yet acquired, and you have large fundraising goals. So the question is if the grants and donations don't come through, so can you walk us through your contingency plan? What do you what do you plan to do to ensure the viability of your budget? Sure. So, basically, we have when we created the pro form a of the five year plan,
we have looked at funding diversification. So we're looking at private dollars and also we're looking at public grants as well. So we do have, the the good opportunity to leverage existing funds that we do have for our adult education program that will be aligned with the charter programming. So we do have some pipeline dollars that we are actively applying for now that will actually augment some of that support. Also too, we're looking at corporations and have a strategy there. We have began to socialize, the Baker Ripley Pathways Academy with funders.
We're seeing some excitement and engagement around that work. Also, too, as we're looking at the budgets, we're looking at committed funds as well as the pipe line funds, and we're checking on that in real time. So from the TWC, Texas Workforce Commission, we do have some opportunities there that we're going to leverage. And we did list, I think, in a response paperwork to some of the applied health care and workforce dollars that are out there that we will be leveraging in that regard. Hey. That's it. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you. Laurie, you have the next question.
Perfect. So your plan did go through and and describe the screening and serving students identified or at risk for dyslexia. Who oversee, the overall compliance and implementation for special education? Thank you. So it will be, several members of the staff. Primarily, it will be the special education teacher and myself as the superintendent. And so our responsibility will be to ensure at enrollment and in registration that those students are identified, whether they are bringing in and we're requesting documentation from them, or we are connecting them to NIE House,
one of our partners to be able to support the learners in identifying if any of the learning disabilities, do exist and, in providing the supports that they need. If students present with an IEP and they are still of age, we will be compliant, state with state and federal guidelines, related to that IEP. Thank you. My next is kinda still in the lines of the special ed side of things. Talk to me a little bit about your recruiting plan to identify a certified sped teacher who's also, well versed in adult education, but also has,
you know, experience with multiple LREs and, you know, disabilities. Will they, what are your plans also along the lines of those more extensive needs, outside of that mainstream needs that would need to be met outside of that mainstream. Sure. Thank you. Thanks. So, I will say first, that we we have a great, talent acquisition team, and they have, proven channels of communication to be able to have target recruitment and to be able to recruit great recruit great talent for us. Here recently, we had another initiative. It was not it did not require certifications or through the state, through TEA. But we had so many certified teachers sign up for the opportunity.
So I expect that we will experience more of the same. We in fact, in adult education, probably 90% of my team are certified teachers from k 12. And, you know, so that that really is a bonus for us. And, I'm sorry. I forgot the second part of your question. What would be the plans for the students who have more, extensive academic needs than just that main then certainly we we would likely connect with Texas Workforce Commission and their vocational rehabilitation services. As a former VR counselor, I'm very familiar, with VR services, and I think it would be a great way for us to leverage,
through the Texas Workforce Commission and the services that are available to our students. So we will be fully prepared to support our learners, whether it was a a learning disability or some other disability that might challenge their ability to be successful and engage in, education. And and if I may add, one of the things that we already have in place because we have Baker Ripley Community Schools is, going back to what doctor Johnson mentioned that, talent a team that, recruits heavily for teachers because we have a a a pre k through eight grade program right now. Luckily, we have been able to find some really strong teachers who not only have special
education certification through TEA, but also who come in with a wealth of experience. Most of our special education teachers have been in the classroom from ten, fifteen, twenty plus years, who have worked in elementary and secondary, and some in even adult education. So we will be looking for someone, that has that experience working with multiple learners with, different disabilities based on what's included in different IEPs. So we're we're confident that we can find the right person to serve, all of the needs that will be represented by our students. Great. Thank you. Next question by Michelle. Good morning.
My questions will be focused on ESL and ED staffing. You mentioned on page 25 that student differentiated instruction, student centered strategies that reflect students' languages and experiences would include content and language integrated learning. Can you please explain how will teachers serving our emergent bilingual students be given the appropriate professional development, and how will you monitor the practice and student outcomes? Thank you. So one of the fortunate things that, we have that works to our advantage here is the experience of the adult education
team in serving speakers of multiple languages from around the world. I've been in adult education. Now this month marks my twenty fifth year, and I have served, many have the high privilege of serving serving many ESL students. So we will be able to leverage the expertise again of the community schools and some of their best practices in serving, emerging bilingual students. Beginning first, of course, in registration, which will include the appropriate assessments from the TELPAS and the home studies, the home survey, and being able to identify those challenges very early on and put that support in
place. The curriculum is amazing in that it supports multiple languages, so we will be able to provide that differentiated instruction that they need, and make those adjustments along the way. I'll turn it over to Joel because we will adopt many of the best practices that Joel already practices in the community school. Yeah. Of course. We we definitely have a lot of experience when it comes to this. And, touching on the piece around professional development, around making sure that our our teachers, have the right training and support, so we created an academic calendar that, includes in service days and professional development days throughout the school year to make sure
that we have time to come together, work with administrators. When it comes to our subpopulations, those folks are gonna have to have, a lot of collaborative practices that are working with those teachers who are gonna be helping in delivering some of those strategies and some of the best practices. Along with that too, we wanna make sure that we recruit people that have not only their teaching certification, but also have certifications in bilingual certification and ESL certification who have experience working with, emergent bilingual students specifically who are ready to implement, some strategies to hit, you know, the biggest domains around listening,
speaking, reading, and writing. And then in addition to that, we will make sure that we just get the data disaggregate the data with those subpopulations so that we can make the necessary adjustments, go through the LPAC process, make sure that we're putting in those accommodations in place, in to ensure that they're gonna be successful with their learning. Thank you. I do also have the next question, which, is kind of touched on by both of you. And, I do appreciate the process of reviewing all prior educational experiences for the ELPAC to identify, place, and monitor. This is on page 26.
Referring to your language of assessment, what language assessment instrument, are you planning to use when there is no prior educational documentation that identifies them as EB, but that the home language survey has identified another language other than English? Yes. So we believe that the CASAS eWORKS, excuse me, will be, sufficient to support our learners in identifying what their language needs are. And, again, having been in adult education for many, many years,
if we find that that that assessment is not appropriate, there are many other assessments that we could adopt that would help us to identify the level of educational functioning level that the students are working on. Yeah. And in addition to that, one of the things that it's not captured in there, but that we're exploring is, like, the the the pre loss and the loss testing, which we currently utilize right now with some of our students in pre k through eighth grade. So that's something that we will, come back to the drawing board and make sure that we default to. And if that's necessary, we're prepared to to make sure that we have those,
assessments to determine what the best supports are gonna be for students that don't have that prior, documentation. Thank you. Valerie? Alright. We're now gonna move into high quality instructional material. So, Kawanda, if you have the second the next question. Thank you so much. Good afternoon. So you mentioned Bright Thinkers as your selected curriculum. What preliminary criteria would you use to evaluate supplemental or locally developed instructional materials before they are used with students? So I think, one of the things that we did even when we were looking at Bright Thinker,
we looked at the research and the data behind this particular curriculum. And one of the things that we appreciated was that it was Texas based, excuse me, TEKS aligned curriculum, and so we began there. We also looked for, curriculum that would be able to support, different learners, different differentiated instruction, so that we would have the flexibility in giving our students access to, you know, again, that appropriate education in the most in least restrictive environment. And the curriculum is a really big part of helping us to be able to
do that. And so, that was part of our assessment process, looking at those pieces to ensure that it was, in fact, a high quality instructional material that could support the breadth of who our neighbors are and their learning needs. Excuse me. Yes. And and in addition to that as well, we will always be, ensuring that it's TEKS aligned, high quality instructional materials, that it's on the commissioner's approved list of instructional materials. And we also wanna make sure that we put together a committee in place to ensure that we're constantly looking at what is it that our students need,
right, based on the data that we are getting. And and along with that checklist of ensuring that it's TEKS aligned, etcetera, because that's gonna remain a priority, is what priority, is what do our students need, what do we need to bring in to help with our tier two and tier three interventions and what does this look like for math, what does it look like for literacy, etcetera, to ensure that our students are being successful and that we are targeting that specific instruction based on different, learning styles. Thank you so much. Valerie, back to you. Alright. We're moving to Sarah with our next question. Thank you. After reviewing your organizational chart, it appears that teachers will serve as leads for specific partnerships.
For example, the CTE teacher will manage the Lone Star East Aldine partnership. Given your planned timeline to begin recruitment and hiring in March with an opening in August, this creates a relatively tight timeline, for implementation. So my first question is just, is this an accurate interpretation of your organizational chart? Will certain teachers manage partnerships? Yes. And so I think excuse me. Yes. So it is a very tight time line, and I think because we have we have the expertise that exist on the current
team, I have worked with, vocational programs for many, many years. I would certainly serve in that role initially and then slowly hand those opportunities off for growth participation to those CTE and teachers as an example as time permits. But certainly would be a role that I would lead initially to ensure that we have the coverage, and the, the ability to begin that part of the program. Thank Thank you, doctor Johnson, for kind of expounding on that. I'm gonna ask a follow-up question to it. Can you speak a little bit more about your experience with the structure where teachers
manage partnerships rather than the superintendent? And in your response, can you please talk to me about the systems that you put in put into place right now, to ensure that there's that proper oversight over the management of these partners? Sure. And so we anticipate that the teachers will meet with those partners at least on a monthly basis. It may be more often depending on what some of the challenges are and what some of the performance data tells us about the students and their progress. Certainly, again, the teachers will eventually lead some of those relationships, but I will be there to support using the data to inform our conversations and
what the accountability adjustments might need to be, depending on what happens at, you know, at various review points. Also, too, Sarah, I would like to add that the board members as well, we will help broker some of those relationships as well. So part of the feasibility of the charter school, we actually did have a partner dinner where we did look at folk from, commissioners Garcia's office. We have folk from, Aldine ISD, as well as others as employers. So we want to continue to actually identify those and then help, broker those relationships and help manage and steward those as well.
So that will be a key function of the Board as well. Thank you, Mr. Lewis. I think that actually takes me to my next question that I have. As you all note on page 43 of your application, one of your first recruitment strategies to meet your target enrollment, is to activate the Aldine ISD and Aldine Head Start, referral pipeline. So can you walk us through what that referral pipeline looks like and, what specific steps need to happen to make sure that it's fully activated by April 2026? Vanessa, do you wanna take that one? Yeah. So, we have, a partnership not just with, Aldine ISD head start,
but we also have a partnership, established with Aldine ISD. So, the Aldine head start, I'll start with that one. That that one came about, as we were, kind of, marketing our community town halls that we held, months prior to the submission of our application. They reached out because they, have they're subcontractors for Avance, who is the Head Start service provider for the East Aldine community. As part of, their work is it isn't just to provide access to, zero to five year olds, to to childcare.
It's also to support, their parent community. And, so they reached out because they have a large percentage of their parent community that, is interested in not just, like an adult, ed credential, but completing their high school diploma. On the reverse side, they're also because, of the proximity, they would be, protecting slots for parents that maybe aren't already enrolled in Head Start, but see childcare as a need in order to maximize the opportunity. On the East Aldine ISD side of things, we we've, met with their leadership as well to discuss accessing their levers,
while fall following FERPA and state law for sure. But to, you know, have access to that information of those that chose to withdraw from any of their high schools that are still between the ages of 18 to 50 to help reengage them via this new, charter school type model. Thank you so much. Valerie, back to you. Alright. And our next question is coming from Britney. Thank you. So on page, 22, PDF page 22, the application indicates that Bright Thinker, of course, is your curriculum that you're going to be using, that you've spoken about. Please describe the training and ongoing professional development for instructional staff that they will be
receiving to ensure the implementation of Bright Thinker curriculum is implemented correctly, as well as to address the unique academic, social and emotional, and engagement needs of adult learners? Thank you. So, as part of our onboarding, we will work with first the publisher to ensure that everyone has a baseline understanding, and full utilization of the Bright Thinker program. And then from there, we will work with, the teachers to ensure that they understand how to import the information and to create a class that's appropriate according to the students that are enrolled into their classes.
Bright Thinker allows great flexibility in the student and the teacher being able to have different differentiated instruction by adjusting the levels of the to the be provided to this to the teachers to on an ongoing basis will kind of tie into what Howell talked about in terms of his PD Fridays and the other calendared activities to ensure that there's a consistent review and recheck of the, the ability of the teachers to engage the LMS content effectively and be able to adjust it to meet the needs of the learners. Well, would you like to add anything about PD?
Sure. So the the doctor Johnson and a few others have already, dove into Bright Thinker, and it's very, user friendly. So that's one of the reasons why we decided to to go with this curriculum along with it being, deemed as high quality instructional instructional materials, antique aligned. But it's gonna start during in service. We do have, days that have been, pointed out for professional development, and a big part of that, focus is going to be to ensure that our teachers feel confident in, implementing that that instructional material. The other piece is we're also gonna,
have PLCs with our teachers on a weekly basis to make sure that they feel comfortable with the material, they have an opportunity to ask questions, questions and that we can embed, instructional best practices to make sure that those can transfer over to different, classroom settings. And the last piece that I wanna mention is that there will also be, we have a coaching model that we will utilize. So the administrator of that first year, Doctor. Johnson, will engage with one on one coaching sessions, starting with looking at the lesson plans and making sure that they feel, fully prepared for the internalization,
which leads to to strong execution as well as providing, observations and providing feedback to those teachers to make sure that they can take that feedback, implement it, and continue with that coaching cycle that continues on a weekly basis. Valerie? Great. Thank you. And the next question is coming from John. Alright. I had a quick question about your, childcare. Your plan as that was in the application was robust. You'd mentioned, partnerships, scholarships. You all had budgeted. It's it's reflected in your budget. And then ultimately, some students would, have no cost services. It was very robust. But if you could kind of unpack that for us,
here now because again, I think you had students under 13, over 13, things like or, not students, but kids. So if you could walk me through what that plan is supposed to look like. Sure. And Vanessa, please feel free to to chime in, if I if I, don't represent all of the information correctly or accurately or completely. And so part of what we recognize in serving our adult learners is is the barriers that present them prevent them from being successful or even participating in education, and we know that childcare is a large part of that. And so, we've created partnerships
East Aldine community to be able to remove those barriers. And two of those very important partnerships will be one, Avance, and their programming there. And then, of course, with workforce solutions for the students who qualify, they would be able to receive support for child care. And then finally, for those individuals who do not qualify for any of those services, we have the student fund that would be able to, fund and support the students until we find our as we search for a comparable benefit for childcare. And, we understand that, you know,
this is a primary need for the majority of our students and the childcare partnerships, we will continue to try and expand their new services and organizations that are providing services quite often. So we will continue to expand our partnerships in that in that area to ensure that the students can have the support that they need. Vanessa, would you like to add anything? No. That was a comprehensive answer unless, John has a follow-up question. Yeah. I just wanna be sure I'm understanding. So is there a scenario of which a parent would have any additional costs,
or any costs put upon them for the the childcare or in all of these different, funding pathways that every student, would be eligible to receive that no cost childcare from whichever way. Right. Yeah. Whether we're braiding, all of the different resources, the number one goal no matter how we approach has to result in free childcare access for anyone that needs it in order to really take advantage of, the school model. Perfect. Valerie, back to you. Alright. Moving now to Marion, if you have any remaining questions for our Pathways Academy team.
Hey, everyone. I'm Marion Shetty. I wasn't here at the introductions. I'm an associate commissioner of authorizing and policy here at the agency. I just have a couple couple of questions, I think that, that I have kind of what I'm hearing overall, and just have some concerns around. So you all are planning not to take a planning year. So you're planning to open this fall. It doesn't appear as if we have a set superintendent, and then we also, our our current board members are only current staff of this of Baker Ripley, with, you know, maybe plans to add, you know, board members at a period of time.
So I'm I'm intrigued as to, I think, why now, why right now? It feels like our plan isn't fully fleshed out. And so, I I do see that there is alignment with, I think, the the mission and the model of the organization at a whole. But I think, I think the planning for this whole new charter seems to be, like, still in the works. And so I'm curious if you, if anybody has any thoughts to address that. So we have been working on the adult charter for about maybe two years because
it has been part of our strategic plan. So we were talking about it being a key initiative of our parent company, Baker Ripley. So with that, that, we have our existing adult education program that has been around for twenty plus years. And what we're doing is is that we're looking at that program and then we're going to be leveraging existing staff that will then be moved to the entity of the adult charter. So just to show the readiness is that we already have existing staff that we will be leveraging. As it relates to the board, we definitely had leveraged existing, staff to to to staff the board,
but then also have a strategy to actually include new board members relatively soon. So we're actively recruiting for board members, to be a part of the charter. We have began to lay out, existing partnerships as well, because we are really leveraging the capacity, the expertise of our parent company in education. So we actually have the facilities that we're repurposing already and installing, which is our community center. So we have space, which is our learning innovation center, where we definitely will be able to utilize that,
from day one because we have classroom space already identified. We actually have space for training identified, and definitely we have, again, to post for the financial manager and enrollment positions as well. So we do are confident that we do have the readiness demonstrated, and definitely the full support of our board as well as our executive team, in order to move this forward. Was the entity, I think if you've been planning this for two years and then chose to apply at this time, did you all have discussion around, who actually is gonna own and be the leader of this entity in this school
over time and be responsible for results? So part of those two years, we had conducted the feasibility. So we had a feasibility period where we're looking at, okay, what would be the opportunity, would it be a separate entity, what would be the legs of that? So as it related to our existing existing adult ed program, the strategy was basically to leverage existing staff. So with that, at this point, we're looking at an interim basis, which Angela Johnson, who has been leading our adult education as the interim. So for that, we said that we would look at that at a six six month period and then we will post for that.
So we are looking to have a permanent superintendent to lead this work because we want them to be in partnership with our full education continuum, which is our Head Start and also our K-twelve. So that is in our strategy to do that. At the time of the application, we definitely had the interim in place, and we are looking towards having someone permanent, through search and partnering with our human resource department. So knowing that the school would start in August, when would the full person be in place? So we will have the interim period will be for the first year of launch,
and then we will be conducting that search. It would be an overlap to where we have the continuity and transfer of knowledge. So can you give me a a rough time frame? I think it's I think we're asking permanent superintendent in place possibly around the conclusion of year one of the academic school year. Because we're going to actually have the posting and then we're going to be looking and creating that short list. For the interim, for continuity of leadership, we're looking at that interim placement to be for that year, first year of operations for the school year because we don't want to have any
disruptions at all. And when would the additional board members be in place on the board? That will happen prior to the school year because what we want to do part of the pre launch period is to make sure that we're looking at board members to where they can help us with some of the launch activities, helping us really firm up some of the partnerships. So in the application we've listed partners, we've gotten letters of support, but at this point then we will be looking at finalizing those MOUs. Okay. Thank you. You're welcome. Alright. That concludes our questions for the Pathways Academy team.
I want to thank you so much for your preparation and thoughtful responses to all of our questions regarding your application this morning. You will be notified of the commissioner's proposal on or around 02/27/2026, and that brings our interview to a close. So for our viewing public, this concludes our sub g interviews for the 2026 application process. Thank you so much. Thank you.