[0:00] >> [laughter] do you know what the time is?
[0:05] >> the time is 5:30 o'clock. Present however, in quarters for the state federal guidelines regarding the ongoing covid 19 pandemic.
[0:11] only limited in-person attendance is permitted for [noise] employees or members of the public.
[0:18] doctor brown, will you confirm this meeting was duly called and notice that the meeting was posted in accordance to texas open meetings act?
[0:24] >> yes, mr. Gordon. We did post and advertise this meeting in accordance with the law.
[0:30] >> we will now convene into closed session as authorized by texas government code 551 specifically 074 personnel,
[0:36] 072 real property 071 constellation of boards attorney and 076 security.
[0:41] the time is still 5:30. All right.
[0:51] time is 7:00 o'clock we will now reconvene in the open session, I'd like to call matt mc candice principle of haltom high school.
[0:57] he will introduce the students who are with him tonight to commutate social distancing pictures were taken in the board prior to the meeting.
[1:06] >> thank you. President mccarty bisd board, dr. Brown and cabinet,
[1:12] winston high school is home to over 2,100 fantastic students.
[1:16] tonight I'm honored to introduce two of our finest seniors of the class of 2021.
[1:21] presenting the pledges tonight is caitlin ostramon she's the executive board president of the student council,
[1:28] member of the student advisory council, top 10 percent in the class, national honors society and just an all around great person.
[1:34] with her tonight is her parents mark and stacy ostramon and her sister casey.
[1:40] presenting in a moment of student expression is austin valdez,
[1:44] he's a member of our awesome band in the varsity soccer team as well,
[1:48] member of the student advisory council, top 10 percent national honors society,
[1:52] and also a great person. He's the son of alfredo valdez and elizabeth.
[1:57] so would you please rise?
[2:08] >> I pledge allegiance to the flag of the united states of america
[2:13] and to the republic for which it stands one nation under god,
[2:18] indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
[2:22] honor the texas flag, I pledge allegiance to the texas one say under god one and indivisible.
[2:38] >> good evening everyone, my name is austin valdez as and I just wanted to take this opportunity to address
[2:43] our current circumstances and how it's easy to get overwhelmed with all the negative factors that are impacting our lives right now.
[2:49] but we're on the home stretch in year and we decide the outcome. So I'd like to take this time to be thankful for all the positives in this year
[2:54] like the health of my friends and family and being able to live out my senior year. At times like these I think it's important to focus on what's really
[3:00] important to us and all those circumstances aren't ideal. I think we can finish this year strong and finish it together as a community.
[3:06] thank you for your time, have a great meeting. [applause]
[3:17] >> thank you. Now for words of recognition, mr. Thomas.
[3:24] >> thank you, mr. Mccarty. At this time, I'd like to recognize phil beckman our partners.
[3:28] he's an education manager, and he will come and make tonight's presentation.
[3:43] >> thank you mr. Thomas. Good evening.
[3:47] in partnership with the texas association of school boards, bisd is pleased to recognize the community enrichment center tonight.
[3:55] with us is their president and chief executive officer andy clinton and community outreach coordinator alex [inaudible].
[4:02] whether ensuring students are ready for the start of school through refresh bisd or feeding families,
[4:08] their generosity and support enabled students to succeed and goes a long way to help families break the cycle of poverty.
[4:15] it is with great appreciation that through texas business recognition programs stand up for texas public schools.
[4:21] we recognize the community enrichment center for their ongoing generous contributions in partnership with bisd.
[4:28] [applause]
[4:38] >> miss. President, I will be remorse that I didn't say something about mr. Clinton here,
[4:43] he's really part-time [inaudible] he's already announced he's going to be retiring by the end of the year.
[4:48] for 25 years he served his community.
[4:52] like I saw a picture he looked like me he had hair 25 years ago and so did I.
[4:57] but around the years he served his community in so many ways. Not just through cec,
[5:02] the chamber of commerce and I get the privilege of working with you in the lions club and we'll get a lot of good things for the community.
[5:08] he's still going to be around which I'm grateful for that, but he'll have more free time now for his family and stuff.
[5:14] thank you from the bottom my heart, of what you've done and how you've made big impact.
[5:18] this place wouldn't be what it is today without what you started. Thank you very much. [applause]
[5:31] >> next, we have a request here for the board, in accordance with the state federal guidelines regarding the ongoing covid-19 pandemic,
[5:38] we're required to limit the in-person attendance. The number of people allowed in the boardroom at one time will be monitored.
[5:43] those wishing to address the board will be allowed entry and space per minute.
[5:49] I'd like to remind those persons who have signed up to address the board concerning the general topic that
[5:54] the public participation is limited in the open forum to a three minute limit per speaker, and it shall be in effect.
[6:00] personal attacks on the staff or students will not be allowed for the texas open meeting at government code 551 of to
[6:07] and local board policy bed and the board shall not deliberate or take action regarding any subject that is not on the agenda.
[6:14] first person to speak on the list is debbie villa recentiel.
[6:23] all right. Here's your name and address.
[6:27] >> all right. I'm debbie villa recentiel, I live at 5408 rocky mountain in fort worth, texas, 76137.
[6:36] >> thank you. Go ahead, it's fine. >> all right. I'm very happy to get to address you.
[6:43] I've been a long time haltom parent I'm on child number 5, I believe mr. [inaudible] even taught some of my kids earlier.
[6:50] so go buffs. So there you go. I wanted to address you today because my child was caught
[6:56] in what is now called a cluster event. As I understand the timeline within the choir at haltom high school,
[7:05] there was one child who tested positive over the weekend.
[7:09] contact tracing on monday, a couple more people tested positive on tuesday, on wednesday,
[7:17] they contacted care in public health who gave them a guideline recommendation to quarantine the competition choirs.
[7:27] so I'm going to just read you a little bit about my son hunter. This is what I sent to the district nurse today.
[7:32] my son hunter is a senior at haltom high school and chose to go virtual to avoid illness or quarantine as he doesn't want to get sick,
[7:40] make anybody sick or affect his football team mates. He had only been attending the football class period and just recently started
[7:47] attending choir as he felt safe according to the guidelines that kids were given. There weren't very many kids there.
[7:53] he sat in the back row and was socially distance 10-12 feet
[7:57] at no time were kids given any kind of inclination that this could happen? This is devastating to someone who has done
[8:03] everything he knew possible to comply with the rules. I've reviewed the guidelines put forth by
[8:08] tarrant county and it looks like they're not all being followed. What they got back from the attorney was a recommendation, it's not a rule.
[8:17] causing me to question where the decisions are being made. I will just say he's a football player,
[8:24] he's trying to get a scholarship. I really would hope that we could look at this so that he is able to play tomorrow,
[8:30] it affects personally him on another level because he loses that opportunity to play.
[8:37] on a broader level even if I don't get anything switch, I would like to see a policy from the district on how to handle
[8:46] these cluster events so that it can be communicated to parents and to students,
[8:51] even these 18-year-old students, so that they can make those decisions. Because, he made his decision based on what had been told to him by the school,
[8:59] by his teachers, by the principals, by everyone and still got caught in this.
[9:05] he was there for 30 minutes, maybe less than 30 minutes for the class period.
[9:10] ten to twelve feet distanced, still caught in the cluster, still quarantined.
[9:17] I really don't have much to say other than we do need to follow the guidelines.
[9:21] I have a printout here, I also teach preschool and church, so there's a little bit of deep cleaning issues I would also like you to look at,
[9:29] because if we are truly going to follow the cluster than we need to close that classroom,
[9:34] let the aerosol settle, do the deep cleaning so that people can react in a safe way.
[9:39] so thank you very much. Good luck. >> thank you.
[9:44] mr. Randy barkley, give us your address as well and then you can start.
[9:51] >> yes, sir. My name is randy barkley. I live at 5745 robin court, calton city, 76148.
[9:59] I'm here to speak to the board tonight also about covid advances, particularly these ones that have recently happened at haltom high school.
[10:06] but just in general, to echo what miss [inaudible] says here, we just talked about in respect
[10:12] to the need to review the guidelines that are currently in place, and adapt those to changing conditions which we all know change daily.
[10:22] I think that the district should really look at this, and not only look at the policy of how we're handling the covid clusters,
[10:29] if they're calling it that name, whatever that is, that's a new term I guess we're all learning, but also each individual case and so that we're not just treating everything as a whole.
[10:38] I think that we have to look at each case individually, and we have to follow the guidelines that's not just
[10:43] set out by our local schools in the district, but by the county public health and cdc.
[10:50] some of those guidelines that I think they get mixed up here is some of the things that we were being told about the cluster of answers.
[10:56] it doesn't matter the time that they were there per say, it doesn't matter if they were wearing mask.
[11:01] it doesn't matter the distance of which they were separated, it just simply matters that you were there.
[11:07] in some cases, I don't believe that is going to interpret the rule or the guideline as necessary,
[11:14] and we're going to catch people like this young man unfortunately has gotten caught, and needlessly put them out of their sports,
[11:22] any athletic event or any other events, and in some cases keep them out of school.
[11:27] my child too has chosen to go to an online platform to keep himself from being able to be eliminated or be exposed.
[11:34] I have a special needs child. I know how dangerous that this virus can be,
[11:39] and we certainly want to make sure that he's protected, and that we're protecting others.
[11:43] I know that that's your goal as well, is to protect the children and to protect the community as a whole.
[11:50] I urge you though, to re-look at these and put a new set of guidelines out that covers these events,
[11:55] and to make it a district policy that each case is dealt with on
[11:59] a exposure level versus on a happened to be there level.
[12:05] that's the only way that it's going to be fair, and that's the only way that we're really going to make a difference.
[12:11] I thank you for your time. I thank you for what you do for our community, and thank you for trying to keep our kids safe in this ever-changing environment.
[12:19] please work with the district or with the school individually, and let's get a program that keeps our kids truly safe,
[12:25] but allows them to keep going and allow them to exercise those liberties that we all hold clear and close to our heart.
[12:32] that is that we have individual liberties and we are not treated as a group.
[12:37] thank you so much for your time, and you have a [inaudible] night. >> thank you.
[12:42] >> thanks. >> now, the osterman and the valadez family,
[12:51] if you all want to get up and go, you're welcome to do that or you can listen to the rest of it.
[12:55] katie is about to give us a very exciting update on the financial audit.
[13:01] I talked to her beforehand and she promised to go page at a time for everyone. Miss bone.
[13:07] >> good evening, president mccarty, dr. Brown and board. We are excited.
[13:12] it always is a wonderful day when we can present the audit report to you and put that behind us.
[13:17] we do have our auditors from weaver here tonight, jackie gonzales and stephanie wilson,
[13:22] and I think jackie's going to come up and do her presentation. [noise].
[13:32] >> thank you so much for having us here tonight, testes, dr. Brown. I am excited as katie mentioned to present the audit,
[13:39] and I think you'll be excited after this presentation also. I have here an overview.
[13:46] we'll go through some introductions a little bit about the audit process results and then highlights.
[13:51] of course if you have questions we'll answer any of those that you may have.
[13:56] to introduce, I am jackie gonzales. I'm your audit partner here, engagement partner.
[14:02] I have been with weaver and in public accounting and serving school districts for over 16 years.
[14:09] I have with me stephanie wilson, she serves as the senior manager, and she has been serving school districts for over 12 years.
[14:16] in addition to us, we have bailey lunsford who serves as the senior associate.
[14:23] in addition to myself, I have adam mccane, who serves as my concurring partner,
[14:28] who takes just an independent look at the audit after we've completed our work.
[14:32] on the other side you'll see there reema and elisa gilbertson who help us on the it side,
[14:38] they do some deep analytics for us and take a look at big data and break it down so that we're better able to analyze that.
[14:46] little bit about our audit process. When we talk about the audit cycle,
[14:51] I know it sounds daunting, but it is really a year-round process. Early on we started gathering information.
[14:57] we do a lot of initial planning, and then come out for interim fieldwork in june,
[15:02] and then back again for our final fieldwork in september, and then we met on november tenth to go over results and
[15:09] issued the report to present to you tonight,
[15:13] and then it starts all over again. As we know, this has been a challenging year and we know changes are still to come.
[15:19] we're constantly checking in on that to make sure that we understand and can
[15:23] help the district account for those and answer any questions as they come along.
[15:28] we do perform our audit in accordance with generally accepted auditing standards,
[15:33] and generally accepted government auditing standards. In addition, we perform a single audit.
[15:39] in this year we did multiple. We did a federal and a state single audit.
[15:44] this is the first time for your state single audit, and that's just due to the amount of federal and state funding that you get.
[15:51] we do perform that federal single audit in accordance with uniform guidance,
[15:57] and then the state single audits is performed in accordance with what we call ugms,
[16:01] or the texas governor's office of budget and planning uniform grant management standards.
[16:06] we also test compliance related to laws, regulations,
[16:10] and contracts specifically put in place by the public funds investment act and tea.
[16:17] these next slides are the most exciting, and these are the overall results of the audit.
[16:23] this first slide here are the financial statement results. We have issued an unmodified opinion,
[16:29] which is the highest level of assurance that we, as your independent auditors can provide or a clean opinion, if you will.
[16:35] we had no material weaknesses, no significant deficiencies, and no matters of noncompliance material to the financial statements.
[16:44] this next slide is over your federal ward or that federal single audit.
[16:49] you'll see there at the bottom, we had two major federal programs.
[16:53] those are the two grants that we tested this year. Again, issuing an unmodified or a clean opinion over compliant for both programs,
[17:02] the district qualified as a low-risk oddity, which for us as auditor's,
[17:07] allows us to audit a lower percentage of your total federal awards when you have that designation.
[17:14] we had no material weaknesses, again, no significant deficiencies, and no audit findings or compliance issues in either of those grants.
[17:22] next is this state award. Like I mentioned earlier, this is new for the district.
[17:27] again, we did issue an unmodified or clean opinion over compliance.
[17:31] the non low-risk designate is only because this is the first year and in the first year,
[17:37] we're not allowed to say that it is low risk. But we didn't have any material weaknesses,
[17:43] no significant deficiencies, no compliance findings. You'll see that we audited.
[17:47] it's called the texas volkswagen environmental mitigation program. This was an award for best purchases.
[17:57] we do perform a risk-based audit, and each year take a look at
[18:02] those areas that are most significant to the district or pose the most risk. In this year, the federal and state grant revenue and expenditures,
[18:10] of course, we spent quite a bit of time on, as well as the state foundation school program revenue
[18:15] and the related estimates to that source of revenue. Then payroll and payroll related liabilities as it's the largest expense that you incur.
[18:23] then capital assets related depreciable lives and the construction in progress.
[18:29] we do additional analysis. We take a look at your total disbursement throughout the whole year.
[18:35] we break those down and we look for patterns or irregularities that may pop up.
[18:40] we take that throughout the whole year, review payments to management and throughout all of those tests,
[18:46] we did not note anything that was unusual, irregular, or unrelated to district operations.
[18:52] similar with payroll, we take the entire payroll for up throughout the year,
[18:57] break that down, we look at your top five earners, we look at overtime paid.
[19:01] we review salaries of all the highest earners
[19:05] in the district and compare those to other similar positions.
[19:10] we also look for irregularities there throughout the year. Number of payments made,
[19:15] consistency of payments throughout the year. We didn't identify any irregularities,
[19:19] anything unusual or unexpected in that test either. When we look at child nutrition that we tested through that federal single audit,
[19:28] we break down the composition of cost to make sure that they are in line with our expectations and knowledge of the grant.
[19:34] as you can see here those costs were primarily comprised of payroll and supplies and materials,
[19:41] which of course includes the food purchases. That was right in line with what we expected,
[19:46] no unusual transactions were noted throughout our test.
[19:50] the esser grant or the elementary and secondary school emergency relief funds
[19:56] were passed through the federal government through the cares act. That was of course, were passed through to school districts
[20:02] to offset the costs related to covid-19. We tested that and you'll see there are a 100 percent of
[20:07] those costs that we're recognizing in that grant were related to payroll. That of course is what we expected and allowable under that grant.
[20:16] the next was this state program and as I mentioned earlier, a 100 percent of this is related to best purchases,
[20:22] which was why the grant was applied for and received.
[20:28] we also take a look at estimates. As you know, in any set of financial statements,
[20:32] there are estimates included, the largest of those for the district are state foundation revenue,
[20:37] the pension and opeb, liabilities, depreciable lives of capital assets,
[20:43] and the related depreciation expense, as well as your property tax allowance. We test those each year,
[20:48] we do a look that test. We didn't note anything irregular, there's consistency and the same method applied.
[20:55] we also looked for any additional issues, we didn't note any of those,
[20:59] so no material errors or irregularities, no difficulties encountered with management or anything of that sort.
[21:08] then we'll move forward to the financial highlights. These first two slides,
[21:13] this is 2020 and we'll flip forward to 2019 in just a second.
[21:18] we know that this has been a quite an unusual year but when we look here at the composition of costs,
[21:24] it's exactly what you would expect for both years. That big green section here in your general fund, as you can see,
[21:30] is instruction, which is exactly what we'd expect and that's 59.7.
[21:34] the next slide you'll see is just over 60 percent,
[21:39] so pretty consistent year over year as far as the breakout of those cost.
[21:43] when we move forward and take a look at revenue, you'll see similarly that those costs in the revenue streams in the general fund are slit
[21:51] almost 50-50 between your local and intermediate sources which are property taxes,
[21:56] and then the state program revenues, which are comprised of that state foundation school program revenue.
[22:01] a little bit of movement year over year, but you can see almost 50-50 in both years.
[22:10] now what's working best? I don't think I have to tell any of you sitting here that you do
[22:14] have very knowledgeable management team, very knowledgeable in school finance,
[22:18] knowledgeable in district operations in our pleasure for us to work with. Of course, it's been
[22:24] a difficult year and I know us coming in and doing the audit on top of that, making all of our requests is never easy,
[22:30] but having to couple that on top of everything that you had challenging your district,
[22:35] we appreciate everything that was given to us, full cooperation,
[22:39] timely responses, of course, no findings as I mentioned earlier,
[22:44] either in internal controls or otherwise, which I think speaks to just the processes that were already in place before
[22:51] the pandemic hit and you had to decide what to do from there.
[22:56] kudos to all of you, your government. Thank you to kd and shre and all of the teams that have helped us get through this audit.
[23:04] as we move forward, of course, construction in progress continues.
[23:09] we want to make sure that we're focusing on the retainage payable and making sure that's included in
[23:14] liabilities when we take a look at those and then just monitoring access levels.
[23:19] as we know now, of course, cybersecurity is more important now than ever.
[23:23] just keeping an eye on that as we move forward. Lastly, if you are staying up and reading every page in the audit report,
[23:34] you'll notice that we added a covid-19 disclosure. Any set of financials that you'll look at that have been issued recently,
[23:41] will have a disclosure very similar to this, just this state as a subsequent event that the effects of the pandemic are still unknown.
[23:48] but of course, the district continues to monitor cost and take advantage of any funding opportunities that are out there to
[23:54] offset the cost similar to the grant that we saw related to the cares act in this year that just ended 6:30, 2020.
[24:02] thank you again. We appreciate the opportunity to serve your auditors and I would love to take any questions that you may have.
[24:09] >> any question? >> I have two questions that jumped out at me and they happened to be pages 70 and
[24:17] 71 on the opia showing the contributions as a percentage of pay.
[24:26] there's a covered payroll number of $162 million there,
[24:32] but in the front of the report we're showing total payroll of $188 million.
[24:38] is this covered people that are receiving medical benefits from our district,
[24:47] from our state and excluding those that are not? Is that what the difference in the payroll numbers are there?
[24:53] >> there's a few differences, but a lot of those differences are some in timing and then some of the people that
[24:58] are receiving benefits and being included. >> benefits if he is looking at total gross payroll.
[25:05] >> they can't have post-retirement medical if they're not receiving active medical,
[25:10] is the is that [overlapping]. >> yes. Receiving benefits versing your total gross payroll.
[25:19] >> then I guess my second question is on page 70, we showed the proportion of the net opeb liability is something less than 0.2 percent.
[25:30] that's 0.2 percent of the whole state's program.
[25:36] how does someone factor that's retired that worked for us sometime and for other districts sometime,
[25:42] is that taken into account to that detail to get our portion of the contribution?
[25:49] or if they're retiring from us and we're having to take the whole thing in.
[25:56] how's that percentage? Is it a detailed percentage or is it maybe less detailed? Do we know?
[26:03] >> I would say probably less detailed because that percentage is for the district and so there is a study done though based on the employees.
[26:11] it's not going to go down to the granular level and take every employee
[26:15] and take that into consideration because there is a study done.
[26:19] >> we probably have a lot of employees that retire from our district that started
[26:23] elsewhere in maybe more so than many other districts,
[26:28] and so does that hurt us in this percentage of the contribution for it to be less detailed,
[26:34] would it help us to be more detailed?
[26:41] >> I think my comment on it and is honestly,
[26:46] we don't know, this is an actuarial amount for the whole state.
[26:50] of course, looking into the future as to life expectancies, payroll increases.
[26:57] there's a lot of actuarial stuff that gets in this [overlapping]. >> yeah I understand that, in getting our percentage. [overlapping]
[27:02] >> I think it's based on our total payroll. They take the total payroll for the state and then allocate it that way.
[27:11] my understanding is they're not looking employee, they're not going out and saying, "okay,
[27:15] which of these employees belongs to you." >> so you're saying they aggregate with the actual the current snapshot.
[27:20] they don't actually go backwards and that's the methodology they leave for everyone. >> right. >> does that make sense? >> okay.
[27:24] >> they do take demographic all that information into account, but not per person and what you've done historically instead [overlapping]
[27:31] >> I'm just saying that probably hurts us when we don't do that detail calculation,
[27:35] or that calculation not done by the state. It hurts us because we have more people that retire from our district than [overlapping]
[27:41] >> it doesn't in this regard because it's just based on a percentage, based on your overall payroll.
[27:46] >> but that percentage could be less. >> it could, absolutely. But it's just doing it as a state level.
[27:53] >> it's just not an available percentage, is that right? >> exactly. >> in the way that actuarial studies done
[27:57] throughout the state, I don't know that it would. Once it gets allocated across the all the districts.
[28:03] yeah, I think that would be hard to say if it would. How much differential would be in there if it went at that granular level?
[28:09] >> well, it's calculable, but it's just a lot of work.
[28:13] >> [overlapping] [laughter]. >> if this is a lot of work for them. [overlapping] >> I guess it's calculable, but I bet it's not reconcilable [laughter].
[28:19] >> that would be true. >> yeah. >> we may not be able to be here today if we [laughter].
[28:24] >> yeah, I would agree with that. Thank you. Anybody else?
[28:29] >> thank you all. This staff says you all are great to work with as well, by the way.
[28:33] >> thank you so much. We appreciate it. >> thank you cindy. Thank you jackie. >> next, we have a 2018 bond oversight committee quarterly report to mark thomas,
[28:42] but I see ms. Wheeler back there, so I assume that you're going to be giving the report ms. Wheeler and you have another member here ms. Roeder.
[28:49] is there anybody else from the committee? >> I don't think so. I think she said [overlapping] [laughter].
[28:58] >> exactly right. >> president mccarty, members of the board,
[29:02] dr. Brown, and members of the cabinet. The bond oversight committee met via zoom,
[29:08] on november 16th, per our regularly scheduled meetings,
[29:12] we were apprised of details concerning financial construction and technology progress within the current 2018 bond projects.
[29:21] financial news was that, katie informed us that interest rates have dipped even lower and therefore,
[29:27] we are keeping our promise to our taxpayers with no tax raises, which is a great thing.
[29:31] the master budget summary showed that we are working and spending within
[29:35] our budget contingency money that began at nine million dollar is now holding just over three million.
[29:42] the technology budget is extremely positive. It has spent under half of its allotted budget yet has still
[29:49] risen to the demand of a one-to-one ratio for our students in technology.
[29:54] in construction, projects are in step with the timing proposed,
[29:58] even amid this crazy covid world, many projects are complete,
[30:02] including our safety vestibule at all of our schools, smithfield middle school gym,
[30:07] and many other projects are rolling right along on time. Our hvac projects, many of those are finished as well,
[30:14] and others will begin working during the spring and summer of 2021.
[30:20] with a drone video, we were shown that the new haltom and richland middle schools are both getting exterior brick,
[30:27] roofing and interior framing. At cheney hills elementary, the exterior framing is in progress and the pedestrian bridge project is on track.
[30:36] smithfield elementary is also getting weathered in with exterior brick and roofing.
[30:41] the city is working with us to get a new road into the school paved and ready on time as well.
[30:47] the hope is that we will have most of our buildings weatherproofed before the spring rains begin.
[30:53] all have summer 2021 completion expectations and
[30:58] the high school auditorium upgrades at both haltom and birdville high school are close to being finished in january of 2021,
[31:05] and they are looking good as well. Technology news, I think is the most exciting.
[31:11] bisd is now a one-to-one ratio school district.
[31:15] we have a computer for every student in our educational system and a plan
[31:19] for rotation of those computers as our students move through the different stages of school.
[31:24] the district has purchased 1500 webcams and wireless microphones
[31:29] for the classrooms and continued online learning adjustments that have to be made.
[31:34] the teachers have all received their upgraded computers as well.
[31:38] dave lamson informed us that the next stage would be to purchase upgraded computers for our administration offices.
[31:45] the data center generator projects say that ten times fast,
[31:50] is in planning and procurement stages. Other projects in planning are the classroom projectors and large tvs for our classrooms,
[31:58] also student chromebooks for the 21/22 school year.
[32:03] the committee is confident in the bisd administration, financial, construction,
[32:08] and technology departments, and we are satisfied in the efforts to complete the projects of the bisd 2018 bond.
[32:16] thank you for your time. Any questions? >> any questions?
[32:21] >> okay. [overlapping] >> just a comment. I love all the good news
[32:26] and if you all are driven by smithfield elementary, it's [overlapping] worth the wait. [overlapping].
[32:31] >> very exciting. >> yeah. >> [overlapping] it's looking great. >> okay. Thank you.
[32:35] >> thank you. [inaudible] counseling services,
[32:40] department of the day.
[32:45] >> good evening. It's a pleasure to invite mitchelle broadwater a coordinator of crisis intervention and lee carroll,
[32:53] director of counseling services are to speak to you this evening, give you an update on some of the programs already in place.
[33:00] I won't bore you with the challenges, that all school districts students,
[33:06] staff have faced in starting the school year, the board has been very kind, and flexible,
[33:12] and let us make some changes as we go forward to try to address the needs of student and staff.
[33:18] I'd like to invite ms. Broadwater up and we have some guests that'll come in and be [inaudible] ,
[33:24] introduce those, but ms. Broadwater. [noise]
[33:30] >> thank you, and good evening. As we were preparing to return back to school this fall,
[33:37] we anticipated a lot of our kids would come back with more trauma than they usually do.
[33:43] we were able to develop a re-entry screener that was part of the registration packet this year.
[33:50] we were able to get some feedback from our families, to gauge where they were and what our children were coming back to us with.
[34:00] some of our top findings were that 27% of our students felt isolated during remote learning.
[34:08] 21% had someone in their family that was sick or had died of covid.
[34:13] 39% of our families suffered financial hardships due to losses of jobs or income.
[34:22] as of november ninth, we have had 75 completed suicide risk assessments,
[34:29] 44 percent of those were elementary students and 56 percent were secondary students.
[34:36] as of november ninth, we'd also had 11 suicide attempts in our district and
[34:40] 29 of our students were hospitalized due to have mental illness.
[34:46] goguardian. Goguardian is a program that we have in birdville,
[34:51] that monitors our computer devices. Anytime students look at risk behaviors,
[34:58] suicide ideations or any type of self-harm, we get a notification.
[35:04] typically, when I receive a notification, I'll immediately forward that to
[35:09] our crisis intervention counselors or professional school counselors. If it is after hours in the evenings, or on the weekends,
[35:16] I will typically follow up with those students to make sure that they're safe, that they do not have a plan and get in touch with
[35:22] those parents just to make them aware of the situation. Some examples of what the goguardian alerts look like when we receive them.
[35:31] one is how to tie a noose, another one is I want to die,
[35:35] we get painless ways to die, quick ways to die,
[35:40] it's a huge realm of things that students are googling these days,
[35:45] which is very scary. If you'll notice, as of november ninth,
[35:49] we had 149 goguardian alerts compared to
[35:54] the 128 goguardian alerts we had for the 2019/2020 school year.
[35:59] hope squad. We are in our third year of hope squad.
[36:04] all nominations have been completed and all hope squads are completely formed, and up and running.
[36:10] [noise] excuse me. All of our advisors, members, and parents have been through the hope squad and qpr training,
[36:18] as well, all of our teachers have received their annual qpr training.
[36:23] we want to make sure that we stay on top of the suicide prevention program and make sure that all of
[36:28] our staff are equipped and know what to do in case a student or another staff member makes an outcry.
[36:35] hope week is also planned for the week of january 25th. It's going to look a little bit different this year,
[36:41] but we are still excited for it.
[36:46] due to our new mental health mandates from senate bill 11,
[36:52] we are required to provide lessons on mental health awareness, trauma informed care,
[36:57] social emotional learning, and so by incorporating self,
[37:01] which is self or social emotional learning foundations,
[37:05] into our core values, our counselors are able to continue to promote
[37:10] positive character development while teaching the social emotional skills of self-awareness,
[37:16] self engagement, and just being able to really regulate themselves.
[37:20] in all of these, this is a timeline of what our counselors are using and basing their guidance lessons on.
[37:28] we are thankful to have a social emotional learning facilitator this year.
[37:34] our sel facilitator has worked very closely with our two sel,
[37:40] social emotional learning curriculums. We're using character strong for our secondary schools in sanford harmony for our elementary schools.
[37:47] our sel facilitator is working very closely in assessing and evaluating these programs and the impact that they're having on each of our campuses.
[37:56] she's also been able to create sel lessons for all of our asynchronous learners.
[38:02] creates daily sel morning announcements. She works and plans our mental health topics
[38:08] and sel activities for our campuses every month as well and develops our sel newsletter for our staff that we send out monthly.
[38:19] she's also available to help our campuses with any trainings that they may need or extra assistance that they may have.
[38:26] she's also developed our counselor canvas course, which all of our sel lessons have been uploaded to make sure that all of
[38:33] our online learners are receiving the same skills and the same lessons,
[38:38] and it allows our counselors to be able to have that connection with them as well.
[38:43] we're also thankful to have been able to hire three full-time elementary crisis intervention counselors.
[38:50] we have one per cluster, and they typically spend about one day a week at a school.
[38:56] there are a few schools that we've had to double up on, instead they'll go to those schools on half days.
[39:02] these crisis intervention counselors work with our at-risk students.
[39:07] they do the intake interviews with our homeless students. They do follow-up meetings with them,
[39:12] as well as provide any needed resources and supports that they might need. They follow up with all of our asynchronous learners,
[39:20] and they also are available to provide mental health and trauma informed care to our students,
[39:25] reinforcing those sel lessons that they are learning in their gardens lessons,
[39:30] creating safe places and just helping the students learn to regulate their emotions and facilitate any group discussions on social skills,
[39:40] life skills, or our sel skills, they also are very instrumental in
[39:45] planning our mental health activities every month as well. We know that our youth and suicide rates are at an all time high right now,
[39:54] and mental health is more important than it's ever been before.
[39:59] we're thankful to have these positions, but if you recall, about 33 of our completed suicide risk assessments were elementary students.
[40:08] there definitely is a need for more of these elementary crisis intervention counselors.
[40:15] lastly, anonymous alerts is our new anti bullying and safety app,
[40:21] that we have rolled out in the past month.
[40:27] it's replacing our blackboard tip lines. Any time a person from our community, a student,
[40:34] or a parent has an anonymous tip that they want to submit, they can do it from the comfort of their phone
[40:40] because we know kids are on their phones all the time. They can also do a web version as well.
[40:45] it's set up right now to where all of our campus administrators, counselors,
[40:49] and sors will automatically receive the alert for their particular campus.
[40:54] dr. Showell and I also have receive all the alerts for the district. We're able to help monitor as well.
[41:00] some really neat features about this program is that it allows us to anonymously interact back and forth with the submitter.
[41:08] in the past, we haven't been able to have that access, for example,
[41:13] last year we had a report about a second grade student who is being abused,
[41:18] and that was all the information we received. We didn't know the name, the school,
[41:23] we did know the school, but we didn't know the name or the teacher. This allows us to ask more clarifying questions and get more information that we need.
[41:32] it's also a great way to let the submitter know, "hey, we're on it.
[41:37] we're working to investigate. We want to make sure that we're taking care of any concerns that you guys have."
[41:44] there's also a help button, that allows us to upload personal resources that are specific to our district and our community.
[41:53] it has been very well received and it's been very neat to watch that.
[41:58] [background]
[42:05] >> it's my turn. Good evening, I wanted to start off with talking to you about
[42:10] the professional secondary school counselors and what the pandemic,
[42:15] the workload that is going on the counselors because of the pandemic.
[42:20] this is a table that I put in to show you and I chose the three traditional high schools and two middle schools.
[42:27] this is through the second six weeks. From school starting until the end of the second six weeks,
[42:32] I want to show you the sheer number of students that are moving back and forth.
[42:36] for an example, for wholesome high school, there was 404 students who started online,
[42:42] but then ended up going back to face-to-face. For face-to-face to online,
[42:49] there was 591 students. If you add that together,
[42:54] that's 995 different students that had to have some support from this counselor.
[43:00] when a kid decides to change their learning platform, a counselor has to go in and actually change the learning platform.
[43:08] it shows that student is an online student. They'll have an o indicator.
[43:12] for some schools, depending upon how they set up their online section,
[43:17] some schools had to actually change the schedule as well as doing changing the method of instruction.
[43:24] besides their regular workload, this just shows you because of the pandemic
[43:29] and we know it's everywhere, especially for teachers. Just the additional work that is in place,
[43:35] even in the counseling office because of the pandemic. Last year we came to you guys when we did
[43:42] our update and we talked about how we were going to put in a district expectation for counselors to start documenting in skyward.
[43:52] we wanted them to document anytime they did something to support a student.
[43:57] now, we have recently in the last two years,
[44:01] I would say there's been at least two or three times where somebody
[44:05] has came back for whatever has happened that has asked us,
[44:10] "we want to see what all documentation you have dealing with this student."
[44:14] very easy. All we had to do was go in and print the report for the student and we had it right there in front of us.
[44:20] what day, what time and what were the office visit codes. If they want to, they can write a little note in there.
[44:27] I wanted to give you an example and this was at battle high school example.
[44:31] for the first six weeks, I would say they were that stellar school as far as doing they're documenting.
[44:37] this just shows you an example. These aren't all at the office visit codes.
[44:42] there are numerous office visit codes, but I just gave you a little sample.
[44:46] basically if you look at the first one, the parent call, the e-mail, the texts.
[44:50] in the first six weeks, those counselors called or text or e-mailed 1,047 parents.
[44:58] you want to go down to the scheduling. In the first six weeks,
[45:02] they did something with 1,358 students schedules.
[45:07] that just goes to show you some of the things that they are documenting.
[45:11] I just wanted to give an example of three of the counselors over there. Let's look at stephanie stevenson.
[45:16] she had 856 different office code visits.
[45:23] that number was awesome. That just shows you how our counselors are supporting our students.
[45:31] this is elementary all the way through high school. I just wanted to give you an example of battle high.
[45:39] I know that there are some things coming out of the pandemic that
[45:45] our pluses that we have been able to see a better way of doing things.
[45:52] because of the pandemic, obviously we have kids that are at home, we have kids that are face-to-face.
[45:58] but every single kid has a counselor or has a canvas dashboard.
[46:03] the canvas dashboard is what has all their courses on it.
[46:08] we came up with the idea, how are we going to support these students? How are we going to support all of these students?
[46:14] what we did, we came up with what's called a counselor connection canvas course.
[46:18] what I had to do is I went into skyward, I made the counselor connection course in skyward.
[46:24] I uploaded all the students to it for the different schools and then each counselor made their own connection course.
[46:32] basically every single student in the secondary level has
[46:37] a counselor connection canvas course on their dashboard that they can reach out to their counselor at anytime.
[46:43] also, you'll see on here these are interactive.
[46:48] if it was the kid and they needed some skills on mindfulness,
[46:53] they could click on mindfulness and all different resources on how they could do mindfulness would be on there.
[47:00] also if they want to see their counselor, all they have to do is check in with ms. Poston.
[47:06] a google form comes up, they fill it out. It immediately goes to ms. Poston and then
[47:10] she knows who she needs to have direct support with. Once we started doing this,
[47:16] it was a little work in the beginning because the counselors have never had to do like a canvas course before,
[47:21] but every single counselor that is using it absolutely loves it.
[47:25] this is something that I see us doing from now and forever, hopefully.
[47:30] it's awesome because if the parents are also subscribed to canvas,
[47:34] then they get the same thing. You can put whatever information in this canvas course that you need.
[47:40] for seniors, they have put all college related stuff in there so the parents and the kids can access it.
[47:46] it's really cool. Cardonex, you guys remember this from back in the spring.
[47:54] this is our master schedule programmer that helps us make a master schedule.
[47:59] for next year, this will be our second year of implementation.
[48:04] basically what cardonex does, it allows the schools to build a master schedule within two days or less.
[48:10] that's what we found in the spring. Inside cardonex, they were able to build their master schedule in two days or less,
[48:17] which is a lot better than six weeks. That was definitely a plus.
[48:22] now if cardonex is done right, it has the capability to feel more than 90 percent of the students first request choices.
[48:30] we are planning on moving forward with continued in depth, in-person training.
[48:35] we're hoping by the spring. Hopefully we will be able to do in-person training because of the new plc
[48:41] that allow us to have room to train and also maintain all the safety protocols that we need.
[48:46] the trainers actually come out to us and work with our staff.
[48:51] tonight, I want to highlight three ladies who make up a part of our dropout prevention plan.
[48:59] I think seven years ago, you guys approved graduation coaches.
[49:04] I can't tell you what a great decision that was. I want to introduce them real quick before I talk about what they do.
[49:12] susan shaw, she's the graduation coach at haltom high. Shelby griffith is at shannon and at board vote and
[49:20] kinzie morgan mallott is at regional high school and shannon.
[49:25] basically we need graduation coaches more than ever the spring and the pandemic.
[49:31] because as you can imagine, based on what we're seeing now we have lots of seniors that just did not
[49:36] engage and doing what they needed to do so they could graduate.
[49:41] this is just a small sample of what these ladies do.
[49:46] I couldn't put it all on one page. But these ladies, you will never find a group of people that have more passion,
[49:55] more resilience, more perseverance for all these kids. They do not give up on any kid.
[50:02] because of that, we had 100 percent graduation rate in the spring.
[50:07] if a kid was scheduled to graduate in may, they graduated in may.
[50:12] I can tell you that's because of the biggest part's because of these three ladies.
[50:16] they would call parents, call students, show up at their house.
[50:20] they would bribe them with incentives. I reached out to phil beckman who is the partners in education and asked,
[50:29] "is there any way that we could get some gift cards or something?"
[50:33] he reached out to the chamber in about a week I had 35 gift cards.
[50:37] these ladies use those gift cards to convince those kids, "hey,
[50:42] if you do this much work tonight, I'm going to send you this gift card or I'm going to send you a pizza to your house."
[50:48] surprisingly or not so surprisingly, they got to work.
[50:53] but I tell you it's because those three ladies right there pulled them across the stage.
[50:58] I can't be any proud of a group that I have in my counseling service department. I just wanted to highlight them today because they were in
[51:04] circle part in these kids graduating in may.
[51:08] thank you, ladies. Lastly, we have
[51:14] seen with our professional elementary school counselors, this first semester.
[51:20] they have been just overloaded obviously with all the pandemic stuff going on,
[51:25] since we only have three elementary crisis counselors. Then the elementary professional school counselors do a lot of that crisis work.
[51:33] because of this pandemic, they were really overloaded and they were pretty down.
[51:40] michelle and I got together and we went and talked to mr. Baskerville and we
[51:45] decided that we look through our budget and we found enough money to hire two part-time counselor clerks.
[51:52] basically what they do is they just help with assisting with all the continuous data that has to be entered.
[51:59] they're also going to help upload the section 504 documents into our new success ed program.
[52:06] also hopefully we can pay them long enough that they can help schedule and begin the paperwork for section 504 meetings.
[52:14] because the amount of time it takes just a schedule a 504 meeting takes quite a long time,
[52:20] especially if you have over 100, 504 students and having those 504 meeting scheduled.
[52:28] last but not least, obviously, you guys probably know how to get in touch with us.
[52:33] we wanted to give you that. Honestly, I really want to thank you guys for letting us come and
[52:39] update you on all the great things I feel like we're doing in the counseling service department,
[52:44] but more than anything, I thank you for your continued support always in the counseling service department.
[52:50] [noise] questions? >> thank you. Any comments, questions?
[52:55] >> you all know how I feel about you. >> thank you for that.
[53:00] >> you're on you're a game, so thank you.
[53:04] I've one question about counselor check in and I'm wondering if there's a way to make sure that tab.
[53:12] if a student presses that tab and wants to enter in the google form, that the counselors aren't dead,
[53:16] that they're protected from weekends, and if there's a way for a student to get direct help if they if they're using
[53:21] that tab without the counselor feeling like they're constantly tethered to that canvas.
[53:28] >> right. Honestly, most of the counselors constantly either look at their email or are going to be looking at this.
[53:35] I can't say that I have very many that would look at that if a kid was a need and turn the other way.
[53:42] I mean art department is such a great group of people that all they know how to do is support these kids,
[53:48] and I can't imagine that somebody would not look at that and then do something about it.
[53:53] >> certainly, I understand that, but I also want to make sure that they are protected, that there's a way for a student to
[53:58] supersede that and there's a way for a counselor to not feel tethered to it.
[54:03] but the students still get that 9-1-1 type access that they needed it.
[54:07] >> right. >> you said
[54:20] the counselor cross check his tab and
[54:24] list of immediate resources and hot lines and then will also have their office hours so that students can [background] >> perfect. That's what I wanted to know.
[54:29] the office code data collection is just brilliant. I hope that that gives you all some insight that you can continue to share with mr.
[54:37] baskebo and with us to know how we can better support you because those numbers they speak volumes [overlapping].
[54:43] >> they speak out volumes, and it really will help show you their trend of what's going on on the campus.
[54:48] we let last year be a pilot, but this year every six weeks for
[54:53] a running documentation reports and it goes to the principal, so he can see exactly what's going on on their campuses. Anything else?
[55:04] >> [overlapping] any other question? >> thank you very much. >> [overlapping] thank you guys again to we appreciate it
[55:09] >> thanks for all the work. [applause]
[55:16] >> next we have bond that day, let's go on.
[55:28] >> [laughter] I couldn't do much better than ms. Wheeler, but I'll give it a try here. Update you on the bond,
[55:33] it's going great. We move on to the next slide. We just start with the budget here, and you see we're making quite a bit of progress in that
[55:40] costing commitments 209 million of the 215 million, that's the construction budget.
[55:46] moving right along, making progress, you can see down there the contingency she talked about it,
[55:52] 3.1 million will go into a little detail here next on that. It'll just show the allocations have been made on the contingency.
[56:00] starting with that nine million, the first allocation was the security vestibules,
[56:04] which went over budget, as well as a pedestrian bridge. Those were our two projects that needed help from contingency.
[56:11] otherwise, all the rest were under budget and in great shape. Then of course, there was birdville high and haltom high hvac projects,
[56:17] which were a deliberate allocation from contingency to bolster those shortages in
[56:24] 18 million budget for hvac and roughing in those type of things to do those really large-scale replacements at those schools.
[56:32] we still have a very healthy contingency and that should be great for us to finish out the program.
[56:38] the completed projects list is growing. We have collegiate academy was done,
[56:43] security vestibules are finally done and worked out great. Those are operating just as we would have hoped and we're even
[56:50] able to do a little more than I think was contemplated in the original bond. Smithfield middle gym is finished up you'll see some pictures of that in a minute.
[56:58] north ridge middle school kitchen roofing, birdville high roofing, couple good roofing projects we wrapped up.
[57:04] then all of these hvac projects are finished as well, including the haltom high chiller replacement that was a good one to get done recently.
[57:12] in planning right now we're working on watauga middle hvac, that was the one that was postponed last in
[57:18] this past summer because of covid where we were just didn't want to get too aggressive. We're gearing up to get that one done this summer now.
[57:25] then birdville high and haltom high some major hvac projects there that we talked about.
[57:31] we're going to do birdville high this summer and they're both really aggressive,
[57:35] but we feel good about birdville high because it's large but much simpler than haltom high systems.
[57:42] haltom high we're going to face that over 2022 and 2023 to make sure we don't get ourselves in trouble with biting off too much work,
[57:49] so that's the plan. Smithfield middle, here's the finished product.
[57:54] the addition just reveal, kay did a great job marrying that into the science edition, match the material.
[58:00] it just looks like they were all done together and it just looks great on that corner and really added to the look of the campus.
[58:07] you can see inside how the gym turned out just great. That is our first tornado shelter
[58:11] so in place and ready to go and hopefully we never use it.
[58:16] ultimately richland middle are going great. Contractor is doing a wonderful job,
[58:21] whether it's been really nice obviously for our projects. If it can just keep like this, it's great.
[58:27] they're, they're making use of every bit of that good weather and moving right along.
[58:31] masonry, roofing, interior framing, we've got mep, mechanical, plumbing systems all going in inside so I couldn't be happier with that.
[58:39] they're on schedule and looking good. Cheney hills is going really well.
[58:44] it isn't making the progress that the other schools are, but it's by no means a problem. It's right, brought on track.
[58:49] I think it's that our other schools are doing so good. This one is on its heels to catch up.
[58:56] but same thing, structural steel, exterior framing. It's a simpler building as some of the other,
[59:02] so that it's got that going for its a bit it looks great. Pedestrian bridge, after a little pause there.
[59:09] after the summer, the contractors back in and going full steam and they've actually finished the parking lot on the other side of the creek
[59:17] and they are building the bridge supports now down in the creek and they've
[59:22] actually bridge across the water in there and getting everything ready to set that bridge on.
[59:26] the bridge is set to deliver in february. So in the spring we should see that thing done, which is great.
[59:31] but sooner than we want that sooner than later, not just when the school finishes.
[59:37] smithfield elementary is really looking good.
[59:42] progress is probably the best on that school. Same thing, masonry, roofing, interior framing,
[59:48] in packaged with that is the high school auditorium upgrades which haltom,
[59:52] all the architectural portions of that word finished this summer. Now we're at all the high schools working on the audio-visual lighting,
[1:00:00] all the other components that needed to be put off because of covid and some material delays.
[1:00:06] but by january all of that should be wrapped up and in good shape.
[1:00:11] of course, we're definitely on schedule with that project, if not a little ahead.
[1:00:16] the road project that the city is doing is almost finished. The whole phase one, phase two is a very small portion connecting to smithfield road,
[1:00:25] but that went great and so just couldn't be happier with everything they're.
[1:00:29] back on that haltom high auditorium upgrades. This is the lobby, so we were able to put some nicer flooring material in there.
[1:00:35] reconfigure some walls, get him a real nice ticket booth. Really made that whole area little more useful and then of course,
[1:00:42] just totally revamped their dressing rooms and you can see, I don't know if you've seen them before,
[1:00:47] but this is great, so they're happy with that.
[1:00:51] then what we wanted to show you this time is some aerial flyovers of the projects rather than pictures because they're
[1:00:56] hard to see as big as these projects are. We put this together. From here.
[1:01:08] because it's okay.
[1:01:18] yes. It's supposed to pop up with the little u.
[1:01:24] >> I don't see the arrow, should be a arrow there.
[1:01:31] >> what's that? [overlapping]. >> yeah, should give you an arrow. >> yeah, it usually has the little play symbol of youtube in there.
[1:01:38] >> well, bummer. >> I can continue then you can send me the link [overlapping] and the video.
[1:01:43] before that we can show that right after we're done with the technology portion.
[1:01:48] but that video is fantastic. We cannot leave this meeting without you seeing that video the [inaudible] put together,
[1:01:54] he started capturing some drone footage and different things.
[1:01:58] so [inaudible] if you'll just email me that direct link to your channel we'll be able to show that.
[1:02:03] we'll give the technology update. I really quick for our bond portion as ms. Wheeler said,
[1:02:09] the technology budget is doing very well. We have a very healthy budget for where we're at.
[1:02:13] we're definitely a little bit behind due to covid-19, it has caused a little bit of chaos in our bond roll out plans.
[1:02:21] I just literally ran some numbers for all of last school year,
[1:02:25] we were 33,000 tickets. This school year in the short amount of time,
[1:02:30] we're already at 27,000. We're at 82 percent right now and we haven't even made it halfway into the school year.
[1:02:38] we're on track doing well as the technology department, our bond is moving along well and we'll give you a quick update on the project status.
[1:02:46] like we said, we've adjusted and we're now a 1-1 school district,
[1:02:51] with student chromebooks for all of our kids. Since we met last,
[1:02:55] we've completed installing the charging cabinets and additional power strips in each of our classrooms,
[1:03:00] mainly focusing at the elementary level there due to our 1-1 program now. We've also rolled out 1500 webcams and some wireless microphones in certain classrooms.
[1:03:10] we didn't do wireless microphones in every classroom but that's something that we're evaluating and looking at and seeing if it will have an impact.
[1:03:17] we're actually running some pilots and getting some data. The wireless microphone you can see is that little
[1:03:22] square almost the third from the right and the base station. The teacher wears this little microphone on
[1:03:28] a lanyard and it acts as the input to their computer, lets him walk around the room.
[1:03:33] if they're running a zoom session or different things it allows them to be anywhere in the room,
[1:03:37] but have the kids online still hear them. As you know, we've completed our data center racks in
[1:03:44] the uninterruptible power supply and the cooling system. We still have some work to do here as far as
[1:03:50] the cabling infrastructure and you're aware of the generator, we'll talk about that in just a little bit.
[1:03:55] this is the generator of richland high school, this project is done and this is acting as
[1:04:00] a backup for our dr and business continuity site. That project was completed and is now online
[1:04:07] supporting that equipment as a backup for some of the things that we mirror over there.
[1:04:12] then as you know, we've completed our building wide public address, we've completed our lockdown buttons.
[1:04:17] we also have some of our large fine arts av equipment that was planned in the bond.
[1:04:22] we did the new projector in the colosseum and we've added the fine arts and athletics complex to that completed list as well.
[1:04:28] as far as projects and planning and procurement, in the last board meeting, I think we presented that we're doing a generator for our new data center.
[1:04:36] that first picture is an overview of where it's going to be placed. We just had some meetings today with the engineering firm.
[1:04:43] we may move it to a location just to the right of that loading dock but that project is moving along well.
[1:04:49] [inaudible] you'll be happy to know we added a war room functionality into that setup,
[1:04:54] so we do have a conference room that's got full power into this system.
[1:04:59] then the other thing is planning, [inaudible] talked about, we haven't really started our central administration.
[1:05:04] this is something that we had planned to do in the spring and the fall, but covid-19 completely knocked that timeline off the wall,
[1:05:13] and so we're just now starting to revamp. We're getting some surveys out with our departments and
[1:05:18] our central administration because they're still running some pretty old desktops, some pretty old hardware.
[1:05:24] we're working on that shift and that vision to help move a lot of what they do to the more collaborative cloud technologies.
[1:05:30] we're also working on our classroom projectors, the large tvs that we may be using in the elementary level and
[1:05:37] then our plans for the 2021-22 are maintaining our 1-1 program.
[1:05:41] all new kids that enroll in a district are going to have to get their chromebook. Students that move from fifth grade to sixth grade are going to get
[1:05:49] a new device and students that move from eighth grade to ninth grade are going to get a new device.
[1:05:53] all of their old devices go back into our inventory so that we can offset warranty and repair.
[1:06:00] it gives us a pool of devices to hot swap. Some of them aren't usable anymore;
[1:06:04] they've got different things on them, they'll have makeup or be broken in different places and so that just helps to offset that.
[1:06:12] I think that's it for technology. Let me jump on, mark, I'm going to use my keyboard to open my email real quick to get
[1:06:19] that link and we'll pull up that bond presentation for you.
[1:06:30] it's nothing like typing in your password with the world watching. [laughter] whose idea was it to make these 16 characters?
[1:06:38] >> it was yours. >> I think it was, [laughter]. Actually, it was missed.
[1:06:43] [music]
[1:10:48] who the heck would want to follow that. I like how this worked out for us. [laughter]
[1:10:53] >> there you go. >> any questions on technology? Or [overlapping] the other?
[1:11:00] >> just for the board's information, our board oversight contraction committee where we call jack and killna.
[1:11:08] we've looked over some of these things with the staff as we've met almost on a monthly basis.
[1:11:13] they talk to us about things and we encourage things to come to the all of us.
[1:11:17] this is been looked at on a very continual basis, not just when we see something periodically, but they'd been kept.
[1:11:24] it's really up to speed, particularly on the new street, thereby spiffy at elementary school there I'm glad to hear they're on
[1:11:31] track and phase two really can't happen until we chair of the old building down anyway.
[1:11:35] >> right. >> I'm really pleased the city got off haas center there.
[1:11:41] that'll help us a lot, but it's being monitored also by your colleagues on a very regular basis.
[1:11:49] >> thank you, guys. >> thank you. >>> information and discussion items.
[1:11:54] interlocking agreements for the 2018 bond projects, street resurfacing,
[1:11:59] misspelling, or is it [overlapping] iconic and comes up.
[1:12:06] >> yes. What this is, we have a great opportunity this time for where we have to do
[1:12:11] some street restoration around the new construction projects where there's incidental damage from heavy equipment,
[1:12:17] to our counties available to do that work if it credibly affordable price,
[1:12:22] basically just material cost only. In doing that, the cities are very used to this arrangement where they get into an inner
[1:12:28] local with tarrant county to do the work and then pay for it,
[1:12:32] but then separate inner local between the city and us to reimburse the city for the work.
[1:12:37] that's the clean, it doesn't sound clean.that's complicated, but that's how they like to do it.
[1:12:43] there's some inner local agreements involved in that. They're executing the ones between tarrant county in the city
[1:12:48] now and so there'll be coming to us, the ones that are for us to execute and I expect to have those hopefully in january.
[1:12:54] just want to let you know those are coming in. I'll bring those in another board meeting for approval.
[1:13:00] >> it might be a good idea in the future and this is all done is to
[1:13:05] command a partner with the commissioner gary fickes might be a good partner we want to recognize sometime in the spring.
[1:13:10] >> absolutely. >> this is already done. He started this program quite a while ago and not just him,
[1:13:15] but the entire commissioners court did, assisting cities of getting things done with
[1:13:20] the machinery and things they have and the expertise. The city is paying for it and they do a lot of work.
[1:13:27] in the back of our mind to recognize commissioner fickes, who's our commissioner for this area.
[1:13:32] I've had that partnership is really going to help all the taxpayers of northeast county, including bergvall taxpayers.
[1:13:40] >> anybody else in comments? Thank you. Placements, school board,
[1:13:48] the fine arts athletic complex.
[1:13:56] >> we wanted to bring this item to you as something we have in
[1:14:01] our budget to replace the scoreboard over our fine arts and athletic complex. We got these pictures of the existing scoreboard,
[1:14:07] so that's what is there right now. The part that's highlighted in red is the video display portion.
[1:14:14] now as you know, this scoreboard is well over 10 years old.
[1:14:18] it's no longer qualifies for the warranty from the manufacturer,
[1:14:22] the preventative cost and any types of repairs. Are very costly sometimes parts are very difficult to source and so we're right on time.
[1:14:31] but the need thing is, if we'll go to the next slide, this is the video display,
[1:14:35] what it will look like of the new scoreboard. It'll basically be the entire thing.
[1:14:40] the school district will have the option to pick and choose what they want to put where.
[1:14:44] if we want to do a custom layout for each of our high scores to, one of them might want their scores on the top,
[1:14:50] one might want them on the bottom. We have that option. The other core part is if we want do
[1:14:55] things like on senior night when we have the seniors coming out, we can use the entire video board to be able to present them
[1:15:02] instead of that little tiny portion from the other scoreboard.
[1:15:07] we're working on evaluating a handful of different vendors, we're putting them through a review and a metric.
[1:15:14] we're working really close with katie bowman and our finance department on that process.
[1:15:18] we're planning to bring an action item to you at the december board meeting so that we can get a move
[1:15:23] on this and be able to do our installation in april right after the soccer season ends.
[1:15:29] this is just examples of what it will look like. We're going to use that existing structure,
[1:15:34] and so those columns will still be there. They're going to put new covers on them. On the back that catwalks going to extend across the entire back.
[1:15:42] there'll be a new scrim put over that as well. We just wanted to be able to show off what that's going to look
[1:15:49] like and answer any questions that you may have. I know we visited with the board construction committee,
[1:15:54] but any questions that we can help with, we'd be happy to answer. >> any questions?.
[1:16:00] >> well, thanks. We did talk about in our construct committee was that structurally for them to give us
[1:16:06] an engineering report that what the new screen they put up existing structure will support that.
[1:16:12] instead of to say now we have a fit, we're going to actually give us an engineer's report.
[1:16:17] it does fit co-vector structural engineering days. It's smart because we're changing what's being put there.
[1:16:24] >> that was a great idea brought forward by khan and to make sure that we had that included and they've got that built into the project.
[1:16:29] [overlapping]
[1:16:34] >> thank you. >> thank you. >> take action on personnel items. I want to announce.
[1:16:39] dr. Brown has accepted seven resignation into four retirements. Can I hear motion with personnel items.
[1:16:44] >> mr. President, I move that the board approved and adopt all personnel items in contract renewals as presented and recommended by the superintendent.
[1:16:51] >> thank you winny. >> [overlapping] second,. >>well. Figure that out.
[1:16:58] any comments? All in favor?
[1:17:03] looks like it's unanimous. Next one is consider all matters and incident unrelated to
[1:17:09] the issuance and sell and the barbell is bergvall independent school district,
[1:17:14] unlimited tax school building bonds, series 2021,
[1:17:20] including the adoption of order authorizing the issuance of such bonds and
[1:17:24] establishing procedures and delegating authority for the sale and delivery of such bonds.
[1:17:29] >> mr. President, I move that the board adopt an order authorizing the issuance and sale of
[1:17:34] bergvall independent school district unlimited tax school building bonds series 2021.
[1:17:39] >>think commission mitch take a second. >> I second.
[1:17:45] >> any comments? All favor?
[1:17:49] it's like it's unanimous. Consider the approval of the 1920 annual financial report.
[1:17:55] >> mr. President moved the board approved the 2019 that astronomy annual financial report as presented.
[1:18:03] >> thank mitch doerr. >> second. >> thing was harding. Any comments? All favor?
[1:18:14] so I get unanimous. Consider contract for asbestos abatement
[1:18:22] at halted enrichment middle schools and smith elementary school. Take the motion.
[1:18:27] >> move the board approve the contract to precision demolition, lp for asbestos abatement at
[1:18:32] ultimate rich and middle schools and smith elementary school has presented. >> think mitch doerr takes a second.
[1:18:37] >> I second. >> wish davis, any comments? >> this came way under budget I must be hungry.
[1:18:44] I get what maybe also putting them all three together that hill.
[1:18:49] that's 670 definitely will go to our contingency then. Thank you. [noise]
[1:18:56] >> any other comments questions or there are hands? It's like it's unanimous.
[1:19:02] next, we have the consent agenda before we take action, we want to highlight two donations that were safe.
[1:19:07] that is part of the consent agenda tonight. >> I'm getting ready for this one. [laughter].
[1:19:13] >> it's easy. Both donations came from the great tcu football player by
[1:19:18] time who was a former [laughter] high school student who now plays for the nfl.
[1:19:24] he donate $20,000 to be used towards the sat prep program for staff stipends and student centers.
[1:19:31] he also done in five $5,000 for teacher and staff appreciation on behalf of the board,
[1:19:36] we want to express our sincere appreciation for great tcu players for these donations.
[1:19:41] [laughter] I was ready. [laughter]
[1:19:47] >> they called him the big v. That's what [overlapping]. >> the big v. >> mrs. [inaudible] used to comment if you were at
[1:19:52] the outstanding citizens by quite a few years ago. I remember big v was there and he was our guest speaker.
[1:19:58] he was awaiting the possibility of drafter instantly senior year, gave a great speech and yeah,
[1:20:05] landed with the team that you just happen to go to the super bowl with a backup quarterback win the super bowl and now he's with the different team.
[1:20:12] >> detroit lines just signed a multi-million dollar free agent contract.
[1:20:16] >> maybe they reminded him of his contract for us and don't forget us about is invertible good.
[1:20:20] but he has, and I'm impressed by that.
[1:20:25] >> that's great. All tcp will have certain hearts. I understand that [laughter].
[1:20:31] all items on the consent agenda will be adopted with what motion? Unless I was going to get a lot of mileage out of that valid.
[1:20:36] I want to tell no [laughter]. >> privilege of being the chair [laughter].
[1:20:42] >> they were removed from the consent agenda by trustee for discussion. Is there motion for the consent agenda?
[1:20:47] >> I'll move the board approve all items in consent agenda as presented mr. [spanish] motion second?
[1:20:53] >> I second. >> [spanish] second. Any comment.
[1:20:57] all [foreign] it's like unanimous.
[1:21:06] >> superintendent report to the board and the reports that have been provided
[1:21:12] its information to the board had been made available to the board for review in burpo.
[1:21:18] does the board have any questions or comments concerning these reports?
[1:21:22] our next meeting will be here in the boardroom on thursday,
[1:21:26] december 10th. Closed session will be 5:30. Open session will be 07:00 pm,
[1:21:30] as there's no further business. Do I hear a motion to adjourn? >> moved.
[1:21:35] >> wish davis second? >> second. >> [spanish]. All in favor say I.
[1:21:42] >> I. >> that's a 100 percent. >> meeting is adjourned at 8:20.