>> good evening. I hereby call to order the regular meeting of the crowley isd board of trustees,
and certify that we are in compliance with the provisions of section 551.041 sub chapter c,
government code, as amended by the 73rd legislature pursuant to
the public notice of this meeting and a quorum is present. I request the official roll call please, mr. [inaudible].
>> good evening everyone. Trustee place 1 nedra robinson. >> present. >> trustee place 2, dr. Latonya woodson-mayfield.
trustee place 3, dr. Mia hall. >> present. >> trustee place 4, june w. Davis.
>> present. >> trustee place 5, darryl r. Davis ii. >> present.
>> trustee place 6, gary grassia. >> present. >> trustee place 7, kelicia stevenson.
>> present. >> superintendent, dr. Michael mcfarland. >> present. >> student trustee from crowley high school, rose jones.
>> present. >> student trustee from north crowley high school, mikayla nicholas.
>> present. >> I extend a warm welcome to everyone present for tonight's meeting.
the monthly meeting of the board is open to public and we are pleased that you have joined us as we celebrate achievement,
review information and make policy decisions related to the effective operation of crowley public schools.
comments or questions from the audience will be confined to the time designated for citizens to address the board.
the core and courtesy are important elements in the effect of public meetings.
please silence your cellphones or communication devices before we begin our proceedings.
again, thank you for attending and your interest in crowley isd.
now, we are going to adjourn to executive session pursuant to texas code 551.071 private
consultation with the board's attorney and 551.074 personnel to deliberate the administration's recommendations
concerning certain professional employees who resigned their contracts after the 45th day before the first day of instruction for the '23, '24 school year.
the board will return immediately following executive session.
we are adjourning at 6:09.
[background] [noise]
we are back in open session at 6:54 p.m.
agenda item number 2, pledge of allegiance. At this time, please stand while
cadet colonel neoni and the crowley isd corps cadets presents the colors.
>> sir, cadet colonel neoni representing the crowley isd penn battalion honor unit with distinction.
we're questing permission to represent the colors, sir. >> granted.
>> [background] [inaudible].
>>
[background] [applause]
>> you may be seated. [background]
because we took 12 minutes, we're going to skip a couple of items.
sorry y'all, we really are. We're sorry. Agenda item 5.1 battle of the book winners, dr. Mcfarland.
>> madam president, board members, we're definitely excited to bring forward this next item.
we have mr. Bradley parker and miss coconara to present this item. Mr. Parker.
>> good evening. Madam president, members of the board, and dr. Mcfarland, it's always
a tremendous pleasure to be able to showcase another crowley isd students success.
tonight under the cisd goal of thriving students, we want to recognize and celebrate the winner of
this year's crowley isd battle of the books. Battle of the books is a months long district wide reading competition
that encompasses all of our elementary campuses and as of this year, extends out even further into our middle schools,
including sixth and seventh grade. I want to introduce janet coconara to you.
she is the district's coordinator of library services. She oversees all libraries in the district and is the driving force behind
the success and growth of battle of the books in our district. Miss janet coconara.
>> good evening, madam president, members of the board, and dr. Mcfarland.
thanks in part to the grant from the chisholm trail education foundation.
battle of the books has been a reading tradition in crowley isd for the last seven years across the district.
interested students read a book list of literature on their grade level.
campus competitions are held in the fall to determine the team
of five students who will represent their grade at the district competition.
this year, we added seventh grade to the competition, with a total of 20 schools represented at the district level competition.
on january 26, our elementary teams met at tarleton state university's fort worth campus to compete in
a quiz style competition to determine who would take home the trophies.
dr. Mcfarland welcomed the students, facilitators and judges to an exciting competition.
on february 9th, all four cisd middle school teams
competed at tarleton state university's fort worth campus. Next year, we plan to add eighth grade to the competition.
it is now my pleasure and honor to introduce you to the winning teams.
our third grade winning team from oakmont elementary,
the book besties led by facilitator and library aide eleanor hayes and rose hernandez.
[applause] students are zaire mcgee,
sewar abuzard, cortez hernandez,
and vessenia clemons. [applause] congratulations.
our fourth grade winning team from best race elementary are the ravens,
led by facilitators leda womack and laurie west.
students are ariana acosta ibarra, riley banks, me'laiyah thomas,
annie rodriguez, and toni adenodi. [applause]
congratulations. Our fifth grade winning team from deer creek elementary,
the dragons [applause] led by facilitator juanita hogan.
the students are macy williams, jeremiah tumi,
alexa morales, elijah stewart, and mia sigala velez.
[applause] congratulations.
the sixth grade winning team from crowley middle school,
the readers of the round table led by michaela keys. [applause]
students are our raedien che, and genesis perez here with us tonight.
congratulations. [applause]
in our inaugural year for seventh grade from summer creek middle school,
we present the colts led by bonnie wilburn [applause] and marcie nelson.
students are caitlin alexander, jaylen campbell, and kylee lenahan that are here tonight.
[applause] congratulations. Thank you.
this is a lot of fun. Thank you.
>> are there any comments? Ms. Davis?
>> I would just like to congratulate all the students again, and all the ones that participated,
and thank you to the staff that prepared them.
I was there and the students were very well prepared.
it was obvious they had read all of the books because they knew the answers,
and they were in fierce competition with each other. So congratulations to the students and to the staff that helped prepare them.
[applause]
>>thank you all very much. That'll bring us to agenda item 5.2 black history quiz bowl and art show winners. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president. [laughter]
mr. Vice president and board members, we're excited to be recognizing our black history quiz bowl winners.
we have ms. Poke here to present this item. Ms. Poke. >> mr. Vice president and board of trustees,
and dr. Mcfarland, tonight I'll exhibit lines with all three of our goals
and we're excited tonight to introduce our black history quiz bowl winners. We had so much fun at the black history quiz bowl.
we had art, we had dancing and we had lots of learning.
watch this quick video that will show you this little clip of what happened. [music]
tonight we are here to announce our winners of the black history quiz bowl as well as our art and our door decorating contest.
our first place winners for elementary division is
from mary harris elementary is our mary harris hidden figures team.
leading them is coach latesha tillman. [applause]
our second place winners for the black history quiz bowl elementary division is
our meadow creek elementary, mighty mustang. [applause]
moving to our first place secondary winners is the crowley collegiate academy husky.
[applause]
our second place winners for our secondary winners is the summer creek middle school.
[applause]
for our next division, ms. Hurd was able to lead an amazing door decorating contest and so these prizes are actually going to
our teachers and going to first place is from ja hargrave artist teacher ms cynthia lopez, first place
[applause] and mr. Marena accepting on her behalf. [laughter]
our second place winner is from june davis elementary, teacher courtney prugh.
[applause]
our third place winner is from dallas park from our life skills class.
[applause]
now we're getting ready to go to our art division. I'm going to hand it over to
miss laden and miss [inaudible].
>> good evening, madam president and board of trustees, dr. Mcfarland. As we celebrated black history month in february,
we had such a fun time. It was an opportunity for our students to create works as they discovered how
they wanted to express the theme of african americans in the arts.
we know early childhood education in the arts is super important.
our awesome art staff challenge students to study modern and contemporary art,
african americans, and their impact in society.
students created abstract works, they did black and white painting,
digital art, and other mediums. We're going to congratulate our contest winners.
I have my art teachers. Our lead art teacher, courtney pru is here.
thank you. Misty russell. She's going to help us. She's our lead secondary art lead.
mr. Stephen moore is middle school. Come on forward and you guys can help me congratulate our students division one.
first place, we have bailey choice allen from june davis.
second place is omar clog in kindergarten from june davis.
in third place, tyler center,
he's in kindergarten from june davis.
second and third, third grade category first place is tyle gregoryr,
third grade, june davis, second place, she's here.
olive lassetero, third grade. Congratulations. Third place, geraldine rodriguez,
which is third grade, for june davis elementary, as well.
congratulations. For the fourth and fifth grade category,
our first place winner is bethany gonzalez, fifth grade at june davis, and she is here.
first place jet james is a fifth grader at june davis. Congratulations. And our third place winner is taya carradine,
fifth grade, june davis. Congratulations students, sixth and seventh grade category.
our first winner is elmeralda chavez, seventh grade, richard alley.
second place is joel ornells hernandez, seventh grade,
richard alley middle school, and third grade.
benjamin dallinger, seventh grade at richard alley middle school.
our eighth, and ninth grade category, first place winner and second place winner.
we had two amazing pieces from this young man, keith kelly. Come forward. Eighth grade.
hf. Stevens middle school. Congratulations, both works are amazing.
our third place winner is trinity bradshaw, eighth grade at hens middle school,
hf, our tenth grade category,
first place winner is angel pne from crowley high school.
second place winner is jala leisure from crowley high school.
and our third place winner is shayla jordan from north crowley high school.
congratulations for 11th grade. Our first place winner is grace from crowley high school.
second place is bralyn fuller at north crowley high school.
third place winner is yazmine franklin from north crowley high school.
in 12th grade from division one. Our first place winner is here tonight, alexis spears.
congratulations from crowley high school.
alexis is going to go to college. She's undetermined of school she's going to be,
but she didn't get an acceptance letter tonight. She just hasn't opened it yet.
good luck. Our second place winner is easter. I'm sorry.
esther elewuro is crowley high school second place winner.
our third place winner is raven mitchell from crowley high school.
congratulations, raven. Raven was accepted into unt.
she's going to get a degree in graphic design, so she's going to continue her art passion in college.
our division 2 winners, second through third grade. First place winner is alexander urobina.
third grade, jackie cardon elementary.
second place is deshari adekari.
third grade, jackie cardon elementary.
and our third place winner is
[inaudible] congratulations, I'm sorry.
christie paul. Atalie fernandez,
and alina ramirez, third grade, at jh at hargrave elementary,
our fourth and fifth grade winners, first place is madeline watson,
schuyler jenkins, and that's fifth grade. At hargrave, the works are beautiful.
second place, we have a team of artists, nathan tekah, teklahama.
thank you. Joseph joseph can terry leonard,
and justin ho, fourth grade at j. A. Hargrave elementary.
congratulations young artists and our final,
not least of course, third place winner is john gonzalez, fifth grade at ja hargrave.
congratulations artists.
thank you for participating in celebrating black history with us, and thank you art staff.
this concludes our presentation.
>> well, there were a ton of talented kids.
are there any comments or any? Awesome. If you are a parent or guardian of any of these awesome children,
would you please stand up?
thank you for doing what you all do. Thanks. That's going to bring us to agenda item 5.3,
the heartbeat team award, mr. Kirchner.
>> mr. Vice president, members of the board, and dr. Mcfarland,
this presentation aligns with goal 3 empower staff, and every month we're excited to shine
the spotlight on just one of our incredible employees. They're across the district,
but each month we get to honor one with a heartbeat team award. This month is actually a combination of february and march,
and you're going to get to see who we surprise and all that they do for crowley isd. Check out this video.
>> surprise mrs. Tomlin,
we are all here because you are the crowley isd heart award winner for the month of february.
let's hear from miss tomlin.
you all know that miss tomlin goes above and beyond each and every day,
not just on monday through friday day, seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
she is here for the students of crowley isd. She is exceptional in everything she does,
and for those reasons, and so many more. She is the heartbeat beat of all of crowley isd.
blessed to hear her, miss tomlin. >> I believe she's from louisiana.
she's the reason my heart beats for agriculture. She's made it a happy place for and she's helped help me with my animals,
my livestock project and my contests and competitions through everything.
she's been the person behind it and my support system behind that.
when I found out she won, I was like she is the heart beat of crowley.
>> it's not every day you get to work with people that you truly enjoy
seeing every single day and stina is one of those people. She just always has a smile on her face and even if she's having a bad day,
she'll never let you know that. >> she's a second mom,
I guess, a barn room.
she's really good for me and she does so much and she cares a lot.
I feel like you have to have a lot of heart and a lot of passion for what she does.
>> miss tomlin is an ag teacher, and that life of an ag teacher is one of commitment,
and she's a great example of that. Our ag teachers will, as a district,
we may have them on a certain contract. The reality is they're on call 24 hours a day,
365 days a year. She is a teacher that teaches animal science,
so that means those animals have to be cared for in school.
she could be called early morning because you have an animal that's sick
or one that's giving you birth or a student that has a question about it.
she could be called at 2:00 in the morning and she's quick to respond. >> there's always something,
whether a jackpot, a show, a contest. She does with thorough.
she's decorated my brother event. She puts her life life on hold in a second.
this is her first, this is her life life. She devotes her whole life to this because she believes in it.
>> how much does he weigh? >> she weighs 122. >> my culture has always been in my dream to
spend my life doing and I've known that since I was a child, when I was raised on the farm,
when I went to college and ultimately ended up here. I knew that it was going to be my livelihood.
this is where I want to be, and this is what I want to do. Until I am old and retired,
I would not want to ever give up being an ag teacher. >> I'm interested in becoming an ag teacher and hoping to inspire
somebody the way she inspired me because it's truly beautiful.
connection that we've made and I hope I could make that same connection with somebody and make them feel welcomed.
>> she's pushed me to my potential. She brought me out of myself.
>> she makes them believe in themselves. She always pushes them to be better than what they are or what they think they can do.
she's that one that will drive them to try to push a little harder and in the end it changes their lives completely.
>> my daughter, she has told us that she doesn't want to go to college. That she wants to go to carlton to follow what stina what's she's
done and that she wants to be an ag teacher and do what she does.
she really does believe that she can do it and I know stina will be
there to support the tools and support needed for her to succeed and get there.
>> she loves what she does. She loves being an ag teacher.
you see it in her passion in classroom. When she at school working with the students.
she's really just has just this aura of wanting to instill joy in students,
and love for ag and animal science.
I had the opportunity to go with her to her hometown,
to roscoe where she was an ag student. We were going to look at the programming there and to see how well regarded she was in
roscoe and the different things she had done while she was in school and now to see her turn around and do the same thing, her to give back.
it's just a great circle and a great exiting of how someone's giving something up to
you and you agree to give it back to the next generation. >> it's here for miss tomlin.
>> go stina.
>> I don't like this, but thank you. I had to start by saying that.
thank you. This is a great honor. Although I'm the only one standing up here right now,
my team and my students deserve all the credit creating the heartbeat of the agriculture program.
I'm truly thankful for the recognition, and I believe that while crowley rapidly grows,
the deep agriculture roots of this community are still thriving. Thank you again for allowing me to be a part of
this amazing program and being part of crowley isd.
>> congratulations. >> congratulations again. Are there any comments?
>> I'd just like to make a comment. It is really an honor to see the heartbeat award,
see people coming forward. I like to listen and hear the stories of all the ones that have
received the heartbeat award because it does something to me.
it makes me feel very emotional because I love to see the stories and how you're
giving back to the students and we really do appreciate that. Thank you so much.
>> great job. That's going
to bring us to agenda item 6.1, introductions and updates from student trustees, dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president. I'm sorry. >> mr. Vice president [inaudible]
>> we have mr. Kirchner here to present this item [inaudible] >> thank you, dr. Mcfarland. Mr. Vice president,
trustees tonight, we're excited to hear from our student trustees. Each month, they come from
their representative high schools and share three c's celebrations,
campus events, and some considerations for the board. Tonight from crowley high school,
we have miss rose jones returning and from north crowley high school, we're excited to introduce at our first board meeting,
mikayla nicholas and y'all are going to be excited to hear what they have to report tonight. We'll start with miss jones from crowley high school.
>> sorry, I did get situated. My celebration was the ability games last friday.
I am in the student leadership class at crowley high school, and we do partners in pe with the special education kids,
and also that also meant we got to go to the ability games. The left picture right there, that is mang,
she was my partner for the day and her parents
actually posted the pictures on their facebook page and gave me a big thank you.
but I wanted to give mang a thank you because she made my whole day and my whole week.
student leadership is my favorite class of the day, every single day.
the ability games definitely made me so excited for panther olympics coming up.
here some campus events we have coming up.
it's spring, which means it's softball and baseball season. Next monday, is that next monday?
tuesday, we have a softball game that is here at home,
and baseball plays next friday at 07:00 p.m. Also here.
if you do not know, I play tennis, and our varsity district tournament is april 22nd in north richland hills.
then tarleton state fort worth campus is hosting a family day in an open house for
any seniors who are graduating to come and get information about the campus.
my consideration was for more positive student incentives.
I know mansfield id in arlington, id. They do student of the month for
the whole district from all of the high schools that they have. They get presented at the board meetings,
they get a certificate, and I believe they get a gift card as well. They do student of the month and then they do student athlete of the month.
I feel like that's something we should have to bring more positive to the students as well because
they need to be recognized every once in a while and I feel like that's important for them.
>> that's a great ideas.
that's a really good idea. It makes it easier your second go around here.
it's a little bit easier to talk to all of these people, right? >> no.
>> no. Well, you're doing a great job.
>> thank you. >> let's see, here is miss mikayla.
>> hi, I'm mikayla. In my celebration would be the peer mediation training.
as someone who underwent and went through the training, I think that they were very intensive
and they were very careful with how they taught us, and I can tell you that the training that they went through was really informative.
I think bringing it into our school that we'll see a lot of results in that how we deal with conflict because, it's not well.
we'll speak with our words instead of physically.
I think it's going to be a very good program for us.
well, the campus event that I said was the blood drive,
that we have a cte, it's not at north crowley. We just had our last blood drive yesterday,
but as cte, we have our last blood drive on april 25.
but the local event that I wanted to talk about, the axo competition. Let me turn my page.
it's a competition for high school students to come together and sharpen their visual skills, business, and performative.
it's going to be at tcc on april 6th.
my consideration that I want to say was more so more counselor involvement.
I feel like I only really see my counselor maybe like once a year for maybe like five minutes, and other than that,
I would have to seek her out and sometimes that takes a little long time too.
I understand they're really busy, but I feel like some students don't have much of a voice as I do,
because I feel like when I need something, I'm very stern about it,
and some people may be a little bit more shy, so if they need something done, they just don't get it done because they don't know
what resources they have or what they're out there. Maybe we can have like a counselor check up or maybe have more help,
and we can get that advice from a trusted adult like every other six weeks.
I know we have a lot of students at our school, so that can't happen as often,
but maybe just more than once a year.
>> that's another great piece of advice for us.
are there any comments? Miss davis? >> thank you so much, both of you,
because you did have great ideas. The peer mediator training,
could you talk a little bit more about that? Was this the first time you did it?
>> yes, ma'am. I believe that this is the first training ever that they have,
but I only did two days of it. We saw two more days before we can actually implement it to our school.
but basically if there's any conflicts, students basically submit an anonymous form I guess,
and they'll selectively select two people to help them mediate that conflict.
basically, I don't want to say therapy session, but basically just to help them sort out
the conflict without it getting too far before it's too late to do anything.
>> it hasn't started. >> no, we start two more days of training before we can actually bring it into our schools.
it's for crowley and north crowley, actually, I forgot to say that. >> those are you doing it at your school?
no. Okay. Thank you. >> dr. Hall.
>> no, I just wanted to applaud and thank the young ladies, miss jones and miss nicholas,
for your participation in this program. It's nostalgic.
I know that we always wanted to have a student or trustees and so each time that we have different trustees,
it's just enriching to actually hear from students.
a lot of the times as board members, we hear from adults, we hear from parents, we hear from community members,
but not often are they actually the students that are in our schools so I appreciate you being here
and bringing perspective to the board and for the community.
thank you. >> thank you. >> anyone else? Thanks-all. Good job.
[applause]
that's going to bring us to agenda item 6.2 district follow up.
two prior concerns. Dr. Mcfarland. >> mr. Vice president, and board members,
we have miss kunschik here to share a follow up from several of the prior concerns shared from students. Miss kunschik.
>> good evening, vice president, gracia,
distinguished members of the board and superintendent doctor michael mcfarland.
as doctor mcfarland said, it brings me great pleasure this evening. I am going to present alongside mr. Muhammad
an update on some of the suggestions that are made by our student trustees.
just as we heard where they gave us some considerations, we take those and then we roll from there to
understand and hear their voice and put them into action into the buildings.
I was able to follow up and interview student trustee,
miss navea hamilton roberts. She's an 11th grader at shs and as you recall,
she had asked us to look into a financial literacy course for students at the high school level.
we were super excited to look into that. I brought her up to the office, we sat down and I talked to her.
I wanted to understand what was the premise of her desire for this, and also to understand what are some solutions that she would come up with as a student?
it was so very interesting and really just so heartfelt.
what she wants to do is help us to understand that we are to prepare our students for the real world.
give them a foundation to understand financial literacy and to prepare our students in her words,
to not be afraid to graduate and make financial decisions on their own.
I really appreciated the input that she gave. Then she went on. I asked her, what are some solutions?
then she gave me some solutions. She said, what if we were to look at classes or seminars?
could we consider weaving this into a math course or a project based learning instruction?
could the district run a survey for students to understand how many students would want to be a part of this?
could we build and design real world modules like health insurance, car insurance, rental insurance, and basic necessities?
it was very good to hear her think about what
she was going to face in the real world and share that with me.
what we've done, of course, we partner with mr. Muhammad. We work closely together with the high schools and he does such a great job
coming in and helping us determine what could we do about this. On may 1st and may 2nd,
mr. Muhammad has prepared a financial literacy transition boot camp for our students, our seniors.
yes, this boot camp will focus on basic financial concepts to help
students transition into life post high school.
we're going to focus on asset protection, wealth accumulation, creating and spending plan,
living costs, inhibitors of wealth, and etc. These are focused for students who are college bound,
students who are military bound, and those that are going into the workforce. Secondly, we're looking to create a wealth builders club.
this is as a result of mr. Muhammad finding us a free curriculum which is called green light for classrooms.
we will be using this curriculum to carry our students through some learning modules,
also in the area of financial literacy and transition.
as we're looking to work on our master schedule, we're having lengthy discussions with our principals and their teams coming in to look at
their master schedules because we do have a personal financial literacy and economics course already available for students.
this course actually is the economic course that could apply towards graduation.
it's not a mandatory course, but we might of course, always offer this and share it with our students as an opportunity.
we also have a personal financial literacy course that currently is available for our students.
having said all of that, I see your smiles. I thank you for your input, and I look forward for us to look into your comments.
I hope you know that we hear you and we're trying to make a difference for our students in crowley isd. Mr. Muhammad.
>> good evening, mr. Vice president, dr. Mcfarland, members of the board.
at the previous board meeting, trustee vincent james brought up the fact that he had wished
that when he was in middle school he would have been better prepared going into the high school. What we have done is we're working with the middle schools right now to
schedule transition meetings from the seniors,
from the high schools who will go down to the middle schools and speak to the 8th graders and let them know what to expect going to
the 9th grade and then transitioning into the high school. We're very excited about that.
we're still wrapping things up with how that's going to look. But, it's just a follow up with vincent james' concern.
if you have any questions, I'll be happy to answer. >> I had a question. When would that take place?
how far out are we going into this? >> the first one will be may 9th, and that'll be at cms.
>> are we going to do all? It's going to be cms you said?
>> for middle schools, the first one will be cms on may 9th. >> thank you.
>> yes, ma'am. >> are there any other comments? >> I had a question for mrs. Kunschik.
when I was at the black history bowl, there was science curriculum and financial literacy.
looking at new textbooks, was that part of this program or was that separate?
>> well, I would have to look into that. I know about the science curriculum,
I'm not familiar with the economic component, but we have an expert here.
>> those are separate, so that will be offered as a course at the high school.
>> are there any other comments, miss davis? >> just a comment I think.
back to the financial literacy piece, and this is not along the lines of what you're talking about,
but I visited high school in a different district.
I think it was last year maybe. They had a bank in the school and the students ran the bank,
a real bank with an atm and just learning all about money.
that's not as in depth as what you're talking about,
but I thought that was a cool concept. I have a bank in the school that students run.
>> thank you so much, trustee davis. We'll visit more and understand more about that.
it sounds interesting and I wonder what we can do also in that area. >> I do have another question regarding what you were talking about, mr. Muhammad.
how are you getting the students to participate in this? Are they signing up for all students or how is that?
>> we're looking at maybe 20 seniors from each high school to go down there.
it'll be a voluntary basis. Pretty much to go down there? >> no, not to the campus.
I'm talking about for the [overlapping]
>> we're going to promote it to all of the students. Yes ma'am. It's open to all seniors,
so we already have the auditorium reserved at each campus.
>> do you know what time this is going to be? Could we come in? >> absolutely. It's going to be may 1st,
5:00-8:00 at crowley, and then may 2nd, 5:00-8:00 at north crowley. >> so it's after school?
>> yes, ma'am. >> thank you. >> I just wanted to talk about one more opportunity that we have coming up
that the trustees will definitely need to provide their support. We're teaming with the deltas and march to
the polls svec to provide the seniors with one last opportunity to register to vote.
we'll get that information out to you all next week. It should be may 6th and may 7th at the two high schools.
any more questions? >> are there any other questions?
>> no. >> mr. Muhammad, I wanted to thank you and miss kunschik as well.
financial literacy is something that I've pushed.
it's just so important for y'all.
this gentleman right here in front of y'all is a financial guru.
y'all really should try to be a part of this and
learn everything about the financial literacy that y'all can.
I would love to be a part. Any way that I can, I'd love to.
>> thank you. Appreciate it. >> thank you, ma'am.
>> that's going to bring us to agenda item 7.1 agricultural science program highlights. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president and board members, we're definitely excited to continue to highlight our agriculture science program.
we have dr. Duvall and also mr. Brown here to share with us the outstanding things that are happening in agricultural science.
>> good evening, dr. Mcfarland, mr, gracia, and members of the board, we are so excited tonight to talk about our agricultural science program.
here to do the presentation, we have mr. Omarian brown, who is the principal of the bill r. Johnson cte center,
and dr. Joseph branch, who is the assistant principal that works with this program.
>> thank you, dr. Duvall. Good evening, mr. Vice president, dr. Mcfarland,
distinguished members of the board. In alignment with the district's vision 2025,
what we will present tonight aligns with goal number 1, thriving students.
I will discuss the three major components of a successful cte program.
component number 1, classroom instruction, with the focus on instruction,
reinforcement, additional depth on academic concepts that support academic skills.
component number 2, career technical student organization, also known as ctsos,
is an extracurricular activity group of students in ct pathways to
further their knowledge and skills by participating in activities, events, and competitions.
component number 3, work-based learning. Opportunities to further develop and apply skills,
sustain interactions with employers in real-world settings that fosters
firsthand engagement with tasks required for the specific careers.
at this time, I will turn over to dr. Branch. Thank you.
>> thank you, mr. Brown. Mr. Vice president, dr. Mcfarland, and distinguished members of the board.
the agricultural science pathway consists of three distinct programs of study,
animal science, applied agricultural engineering, and plant science.
listed are the tea-approved certifications that our students can earn under each program of study.
last year, our agricultural science students earned 144 certifications.
currently, the agricultural science pathway boast an enrollment of
412 students across all three pathways,
and these remarkable achievements are a testament to the unwavering dedication of our agricultural science teachers.
it is my pleasure to introduce mr. Mckinnerney, one of our four dedicated agricultural science teachers.
[applause]
>> thank you, dr. Duvall, mr. Brown, and dr. Branch. Mr. Vice president,
dr. Mcfarland, and distinguished members of the board. My name is shea mckinnerney.
I'm one of the agri science teachers here at crowley isd. With me tonight is my team.
miss tina tomlin, miss brittney machado smith, and mr. Jake stewart.
we'll jump right in. What are our ag pathway?
we have what we call our three work-based learning enterprises.
currently, we have the crowley carnation club, which is based solely with our floral design class,
the crowley ag mechanics program, which works strictly with the ag engineering program,
and then we also have the crowley critter club, which is our animal science pathway enterprise.
all of these enterprises promote hands-on career experiences for students and all of their classes.
then we also have partnerships with community members, russell's feed, a few of those down there.
we work hand in hand with those to promote learning opportunities for students,
if that's internships, partnerships within the classroom,
donations, things like that. We work hand in hand with the community to make sure we have every opportunity available
for our students. What is the ffa?
ffa is our ctso, which is basically our livelihood,
is what we do in agriculture. Ffa is not an extracurricular, it is intracurricular.
as you can see on the screen, we have what we call a three-circle model in the agriculture community.
we're the largest student organization in the united states.
it's student-led. It's from the students, for the students. We have scholarship opportunities available at all the levels,
all the way from local to national. Our three-circle model, as you can see on the screen,
is classroom, which is contextual learning. Our sae is our work-based learning component.
that is our livestock animals, our welding pathways, and things like that.
then our ffa, which is our student leadership component of our ctso.
we strive on premier leadership, personal growth, and career success.
we are growing rapidly. As you can see on this next slide, business is booming.
[laughter] crowley, ffa, boast exponential growth and diversity within our ctso.
we are an affiliated chapter, which is basically the goal level of our industry.
when you have an ffa chapter and they are affiliated, it's these guys are affiliated.
let me break that down. Thanks to crowley isd and their contributions,
we've been able to pay for the memberships of our ctso members for the last two years.
as you can see on the graph, we jumped from 120 students in our ctso to 336 in '22,
'23, and now we're at 417. [applause]
that ensures that every student that is enrolled in an agriculture class at crowley isd is also automatically in our ctso.
that provides opportunities for students. They don't realize the potential that they have in ffa
until later in the year and they still have that opportunity to jump in, get their hands dirty, and learn some career experiences.
a lot of the times those are some of our best students that realize it a little bit late.
crowley, ffa, the students you see before you,
and also the rest of our students, have traveled over 7,000 miles this school year to date.
we probably have a few thousand miles left in us before the end of the school year.
we're a little tired, but we're going to get there. We travel across the four corners of the state to livestock shows,
contests, which are leadership development events and career development events.
those events, essentially lde contests,
students learn public speaking and demonstration skills
that help them in their career later on. Then cdes provide that hands-on opportunity where they learn
the different trades of agriculture in the animal science, ag engineering, and plant science pathways in an extended format.
as you can see on the next slide, we don't travel 7,000 miles just to go.
we are very successful with the miles that we travel. As you can see on the screen,
these are awards that started in july of 2023.
those awards are to date, we've won all of those just this year,
and we still have about a month and a half within us left in competitions this year so I think we'll be adding a little bit more to this list.
if you see on there anything that says grand champion or reserve champion.
if you're unfamiliar with those terms in the stock show world, that means that is the best.
there's nothing better than that than what crowley ffa students were able to achieve.
we've traveled, we've been successful, and our kids have learned a lot of life skills,
and they're still developing those skills to this day. [applause]
our success is not possible without our student leaders. Joining us tonight are nine of our 10 officers.
I would have them stand, but our president recently broke his leg in a baseball accident,
[laughter] so we'll just recognize him sitting.
our officer team is listed on the screen also to my right, your left.
this is our second year in a row that we have had two area v district 6 officers.
those officers serve ffa chapters within our area. They are inside of our district.
then this year, we were pleased to have an area officer
represent crowley ffa at the area level,
that is, he is the first area officer that this chapter has had since 2004.
just to give you a little demographic of area 5, it is one of the largest areas in the state of texas.
it covers about 120 ffa chapters in 10 different counties,
including tarrant and dallas counties.
that's quite a bit of counties and student population to cover.
I would also take this time to recognize our parent group,
our crowley ffa backers alumni group. They provide continued support for us throughout the year with fundraisers, donations,
and ensuring that our students have that little extra that we might need here and there to be sure that we are
successful and all those miles we travel are paying off both on the road and in the classroom.
[applause]
this concludes our presentation and my team and I will be available for questions if you have any.
>> can you introduce your crew here?
>> first, we have mr. Cody boone. >> cody, don't stand up?
>> this is mr. Cody boone. He's our chapter president.
he's a senior at crowley high school and will be graduating.
I don't know if he knows where he's going to school yet, but he's going to school somewhere. Hopefully, tarleton.
next, we have mr. Gavin sutton. He's one of our vice presidents.
he is a junior at crowley high school.
he's also one of our district officers. Next, we have the man with the hair, mr. Josiah gomez.
he is a junior at crowley high school. Next, we have ms. Caitlin sykes, she is a senior.
she will be attending tarleton state in the fall.
that's caitlin. Next, we have ms.
autumn reese, she is a senior from north crowley. Where are you going on?
she's going to be attending texas a&m commerce in the fall.
next, we have ms. Alejandra gonzalez,
she's a senior at crowley, and she will be attending tarleton state in the fall.
next, we have ms. Emma herwig.
she's a junior at crowley high school and she's also an integral part of the crowley high school band.
on the second row, we have ms. Cheyanne boone. She is actually cody's younger sister,
but she doesn't want to be referred to that, she is cheyanne. She is a sophomore at crowley high school.
last, but at least, we have ms. Katie whitford. She is a sophomore at crowley high school.
also, in front of you. You might have seen that you have a crowley cisd desk trophy, we like to call them.
those were made by students in the ag engineering pathway in the welding class.
we had those students make those for you guys. >> thank you.
>> are there any comments or questions? Ms. Davis
>> I have a comment first. The leadership component of this organization is truly amazing.
I've had the opportunity to see
the students present a program,
totally lead it, plant it, execute everything,
and they are so on point that it is just amazing to watch their leadership skills being developed.
so kudos to you.
I do have a question about the certificates.
you said in 2022, '23. >> yes, ma'am. >> it was 144 certificates.
>> yes, ma'am. >> and you said right now we're at 400?
>> no, ma'am. We have 412 students in our program. Last year we earned 144 certifications within our ag program.
>> do you have any idea how many you might earn this year? >> projections are we will have more than we did last year,
so that's always good for us. >> good. Thank you.
>> any other comments or questions? >> did you say we were the largest school with ffa members?
>> we are one of the largest schools in tarrant county right now currently. >> go crowley.
>> once again, being a band parent and knowing all of
these parents that take kids and everything, are there any parents in the audience?
>> yeah. >> stand up. >> stand up, please.
>> this is a great presentation. >> thank you.
>> [inaudible] >> thank you.
>> dr. Mcfarland. >> mr. Vice president and board members,
I just want to bring your attention to or just draw back to your remembrance
a year or so ago when you really emphasized the need for students to be involved and engaged.
so one of the things we realized is that several students were engaged or were not engaged because of fees and because of other reasons.
dr. Duvall and the cte team really told of,
we have students here that want to be engaged as well and so you-all's decision to make sure that
we fund memberships and that we make sure kids are engaged resulted in these numbers.
so thank you-all for your vision and your leadership in that respect.
>> that's going to bring us to agenda item 7.2,
bond 2023 update crowley high school new campus design, dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president and board members, we are definitely excited about this next item.
can you-all repeat after me? Promises made. >> promises made. >> promises kept.
>> promises kept. >> we are working diligently to keep the promises that we made to
the community when we had the passage of the bond, so we're excited about that.
we also just want to keep you informed, board, of where our construction is happening. As you can see that our district is growing astronomically.
the growth is actually increasing, so we are working diligently from a construction standpoint to stay ahead of the curve.
we have mr. Reeves here to present this item. Mr. Reeves. >> thank you, dr. Mcfarland.
mr. Vice president, members of the board. We'd first like to start with a crowley montessori academy update.
one of the things I wanted to show you, we haven't really talked about where we're placing the name of the facility,
so I wanted to bring attention to the monument wall that we have, it's on the right side of the entrance to the campus.
that's one location that will have the name of the facility. Then to the west, will be the main entrance and exit for the parent loop.
we'll have a marquee sign there that also bears the name crowley montessori academy.
this photo is we're standing in the first collaborative area,
we're just past the main entrance. You're looking into the library.
then above it and just a little to the left would be the art classroom.
this is the finished product of that same view. This is how it will look when we are complete..
no, go back one, please. Thank you. This is on the north side of the building.
this is the gymnasium. I want to just bring attention to, we haven't talked a lot about how the layout works at this campus.
the design portion of this is, we've built the canopy on the west side of the gym,
and the drive loop that you see there is solely a bus drop off and pick up loop.
that's how they'll work the mornings and afternoons for bus arrival dismissal.
to the left, you'll have a parent drop-off, pick-up area for the little's from pre-k probably two second.
then your main drop-off, pick-up is on the south end to handle the older kids for the parents.
then just a brief update where we're wrapping up.
we're in the last couple of months of this project. We should have electrical service by the week of the eighth.
we're heavy on the finishes with tile on paint and things of that nature.
they'll start the property fencing, the landscaping, and then we have scheduled furniture to start arriving mid may.
that's typically a two-and-a-half to three week process.
then we're expecting to get our certificate if I can see into may 1st of june.
what I'd like to do is go ahead and have ms. Lauren brown with vlk come
up and speak to the new design of our crowley high school.
then after her presentation, we'll answer any questions you may have.
>> good evening, mr. Vice president, members of the board, and dr. Mcfarland.
I would first like to start this presentation by showing you what we've been working on to-date.
now, I need to follow that with a short presentation.
I'm going to start with some acknowledgments. I just want to say thank you to the school board and the community,
the students, the teachers. Rose jones was involved in the process
of the bond and going through the facility assessment, so I'm glad that you were here tonight to witness some of your work firsthand.
we're in the projects. Some of the acknowledgements here on the screen.
this doesn't capture everyone that was involved in the process because
we have met with the superintendent counsel throughout this process,
dating back to june. We have worked with teachers, students.
we have worked with the department heads and administrators.
there are many people to acknowledge, so this is just a snapshot.
also as far as design team members, I want to acknowledge one of the members in the audience.
erion torqe, if you could stand. He is the lead designer on this project and he leads a team of designers,
but he is the lead designer, and I appreciate that he's here tonight just to see everyone's reaction as we go through this process.
this is a result of the may bond, 2023 bond.
it's with the thought leadership of the district and the community making
the decision to replace crowley high school with respect to
the history and creating a safe and secure environment and
a facility that supports the teaching and all the curriculum needs of the district,
is how this project has been developed.
before we start design of a project, it's important to go through curation.
vlk has gone through a process with crowley isd dating back to june of
2023, and also september of 2023,
meeting with facility teachers facilitating curriculum and instruction,
along with some members of the superintendent council to establish all the curriculum needs of the district
and to make sure that all the baseline needs and future goals of the district were in alignment with this replacement high school.
this provides a document that is a guideline in a book for everybody on the team,
including people outside of the team, as a checklist to make sure we're hitting all the marks for this facility.
this book is provided to every team member and it's
available for everyone on the board as well.
this visioning was the impetus of the design and provided us
with the marks that we need to hit with the layout of the school facility and the organization of the school programs.
we identified a couple of screenshots and still images of some of the key spaces within the design.
this is the media center, which will be a multi-functional space.
a student union, a place for teachers to have meetings.
really a gathering space for students, teachers, the public,
if they're having community meetings, and it faces the shared courtyard within the heart of the school.
this next image is from main street, and it's the front facing portion of the school.
the main entrance is flanked by these two facilities,
the auditorium, the performing arts center, and then you also have the arena portion that's flanking it.
but the prominent focus is the main entry, and you have sight lines to the courtyard area off the main street.
it's important to note that off the main street we're using landscaping to help buffer,
have a natural buffer from main street, and for safety security reasons,
and not to be an eyesore, but to use the natural landscaping as a way to address those needs.
this is another close up shot of the main entrance as well.
this concludes the presentation, and I will open it up for any questions that you may have.
>> any, mr. Davis? >> thank you, mr. Vice president.
I know that there was some talk maybe a few months ago,
all of these meetings merged together. But there was some talk about gaining,
I guess the rights to close part of can't remember if it was
main street or if it was the [background] eagle. Thank you. Where did we stand with that?
was that addressed in this? Conceptual design. >> we've approached this with two options.
with eagle being relocated and with it remaining there, and so both options work.
we're still in discussions with the city. That's currently where it stands.
>> thank you. >> yes, sir. >> dr. Hall?
>> I just want to make a comment. I think we all can acknowledge that it's amazing, the design is amazing.
I know that there was so much concern about preserving the history which you mentioned. I mean, changing the school, I know there was a lot of apprehension.
I don't know how people feel about it now, but I just think it's an amazing structure and I think it's something to be proud of,
xavier being a graduate, 2021, a code graduate. He always says,
that y'all did all the great stuff after we left. [laughter] he talks about the indoor practice facility and the football stadium,
the multipurpose stadium, and now the school. But I'm very excited. So it's awesome. It's amazing. It's beautiful.
>> thank you, ms. Davis? >> wow. Just wow.
thank you to your team and mr. Reeves,
and who have you had working with you. This is truly amazing.
just one other thing, thank you taxpayers.
>> no one else? >> I want to say echo the same.
I was like, this is a state-of-the-art facility.
you know those movies like 17 again and 13, [laughter] I was like, that would be one time where I would like
to go back to high school just briefly. But it is a beautiful building,
and thank you to vlk and your design team, and again, to the taxpayers.
I know the students will enjoy it. >> I just want to say I was looking at the students as you were showing the video,
and rose, your face just lit up. [laughter] but it is a beautiful facility, and I am excited to see.
I just hate that it's going to be 2027, 2028 when we can get in.
I wish we could get in next year, but it is a beautiful facility. Thank you all.
>> I echo everything everyone said. Great job, ms. Lauren.
mr. Reeves, great job. I do have a couple of quick questions.
I wanted to know, I know that there are a lot of voter-approved bond projects.
what's his status on some of the others? Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president and also mr. Reeves, what we can do is that the future meetings,
we can bring back just kind of an update on the safety upgrades. We're in the process with safety upgrades and several of the other parts of the project.
we know there are significant renovations happening to north crowley as well, and so we can bring you mock-ups of those as well.
if that works for you, mr. Vice president, at the next board meeting, we can show you an update on all of the future projects.
>> absolutely. Then the last one that I have, I know that for some reason I get on facebook and
I want to see what everyone says about everything going on in crowley.
some people are wondering how we can be building brand new schools and in another couple of items,
we're going to be talking about, budgets and things like that.
how are we able to afford this awesome school and yet have budget issues?
>> mr. Vice president, I'm want to ask for mr. Fisher to come up and just talk to us just
briefly to address that question because we think that is definitely a good question.
then I'll ask ms. Batiste to come up and just share with us our enrollment right now.
those two things will play a lot into the answer to that question. Mr. Fisher. >> yes, sir. Good evening, dr. Mcfarland,
mr. Vice president, and distinguished members of the board. Wow. A picture is worth 1,000 words.
top in tarrant county. Here we come. Dr. Mcfarland, mr. Vice president,
the bond funds that our district citizens entrusted us with,
1.04 billion, are specifically purposed for the construction and renovation of our existing campuses.
they cannot be used for the payment of teacher salaries,
utilities, maintenance, and operations costs. Hopefully, that answers your question.
>> also, in addition, what we know is that as you drive around the community,
you still see many homes being built, neighborhoods being plotted, and so we want to make sure we are
taking advantage of and being aware of the growth that's happening in our area.
batiste, why don't you share with us just our enrollment and attendance numbers?
>> good evening, vice president grassia, board of trustees, and dr. Mcfarland.
our attendance, and more importantly, our enrollment, they continue to soar.
we are enrolling students every day. We currently have 126 students pending placement.
we're currently at 17,191 students enrolled as of today.
our attendance, again, like many of you have stated before,
it would be beneficial to school districts if we were paid on our enrollment and not our ada,
but it still is in the '90s. During the fall semester,
we had an attendance rate for semester 1, 93.24%, and at semester 2,
we're currently at 91.72%.
>> one of the things, mr. Grassia, that we always have to stay ahead of is this movement that's happening in our area.
I believe that we're going to be addressing
boundary adjustments here in a second because one of the challenges is we are continuing to grow,
and as we grow, we are definitely going to be building buildings and in need of buildings,
as well as making sure that we have teachers to be able to be in those classrooms.
one of the challenges, as you've heard both of them mention, the growth is happening, the growth is occurring,
we have to have the facilities, we also have to have the teachers. Unfortunately, the state has elected not to fund us at that rate,
but we're looking at how we tighten our budget to make sure we're able to adjust for those two factors.
>> thank you. Once again, thank you, ms. Lauren, that's great presentation.
that's going to bring us to agenda item 7.3: current advertised bids. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president and board members, we have mr. Fisher here to discuss our advertised bids. Mr. Fisher.
>> good evening, again, mr. Vice president, distinguished members of the board, dr. Mcfarland.
tonight, I just want to talk through really briefly our objective procedure and no-contact
language that is relative to our current advertised bids.
our objective really is to make sure that we maintain compliance with all associated procurement standards,
policies, and statutes, and more specifically, the no-contact period requirements of cisd rfps.
what we want to do is make everyone aware, all of our cisd campus administrators, central office administrators,
that may have an impact on the selection of any of
the vendors that would represent the cisd based on these rfps.
our procedure is that we will prepare a list of all of the open requests for proposals,
or you'll hear us talk about, rfps. This list will be distributed to all campus administrators,
central office administrators, and district administrators. What we want to do is make sure that there are no conflicts of interest,
we want to make sure that we maintain the no-contact period with prospective bidders specifically from
the first advertisement date to one day after board approval.
board, you'll see here central office administrators, campus administrators,
I won't bother to read this to you, but you'll see the no-contact language that is included in all of our rfps.
ms. Powers wanted me to really stress this and make sure that everybody understood because what we really
want is to make sure that we're continuing to maintain our compliance with our procurement standards and policies.
I have here the no-contact. These are the current advertised bids.
board, as you know, we're working on our strategic planning facilitator services,
that bid opened on february the 7th. It closed on february 23rd,
and we expect or anticipate to be bringing that back to the board at the april 25th meeting.
the no-contact period for that particular rfp is february 7th through april 26th.
we've talked a lot about our 1882 partnership opportunities,
the actual request for proposals for that item opened on march the 4th,
will close on april the 15th, and we anticipate an award for bid perhaps on or about the 20th of june.
the no-contact period will be march the 4th through june 21st.
last but not least, we have the school nutrition program,
which is our food service management company, rfp. That rfp, I should say,
opened on march the 12th, it will close on april the 16th.
we anticipate bringing that back to the board for consideration and approval on or about may 30th.
the no-contact period will be march 12th through may 31st, 2024.
that concludes my presentation, dr. Mcfarland. If there are any questions, I'll entertain those now.
>> are there any questions? Comments? Thank you, mr. Fisher.
>> thank you, sir.
>> that's going to bring us to agenda item 7.4 update on rational budget management and reallocation process. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president and board members, this is just a brief overview of timeline.
I want to share with you what will occur over the next 30 days or so as it relates to our rational budget reduction and reallocation process.
we are in the middle of that process right now. We're working through it really judicially.
march 28th, today, we notified affected campus staff and positions that are being restructured.
they have received notification today. On monday we'll be meeting with
all our affected employees and be discussing new campus positions that will be available.
we will actually also give them an opportunity to have individual transition meetings and we'll work with
our teammates and family members to make sure that we can help them to land in a different position that they may be qualified for.
they'll have priority interviews, april 3rd through the 12th. We definitely hope to get most folks placed at that point.
of course, we've already mentioned it. April 5 will notify actual central office staff members of restructured positions.
then april 8th we will follow the same process where we'll meet with central office affected
employees and discuss new positions that will be available for the 24, 25 school year.
april 13th, we'll have a district wide job fair, and then on april 25th,
we plan to bring back to you board contracts for the 24, 25 school year.
again, we're working diligently through this process and believe that we'll be able to align
our resources in order to ensure that those key needs in our district are being met. It's all we have at this part.
>> are there any comments or questions. >> dr. Mcfarland, I do have a question.
april the third through the 12th, you're holding interviews for those new created positions, correct?
>> that is correct. >> also on april the 13, that means that those people or those employees that did not get hired,
they can apply for other positions on april the 13th through that job fair?
>> absolutely. That is correct. >> thank you.
>> any other comments, questions?
dr. Mcfarland, looking at the news,
we have this deficit and we have other districts around us.
this is not something that crowley isd or arlington isd or any of
these other isds just misappropriated funds and we just can't pay our teachers, correct?
>> yes, that is absolutely correct. Currently there are 32.7 billion surplus that the legislators at austin had.
they have available to them to allocate to schools,
and they've chosen not to do that. Because they made decisions not to do the work in austin that needed to happen,
we are having to in school districts across the state, actually notify employees, create a lot of uncertainty,
identify where we can best utilize the current resources that we have. The challenge is that elections have consequences
and what we have there as a result of the people that we've elected in austin.
we are trying to do the best we can with what we have. But people will be impacted by their inaction.
>> it's very unfortunate. Thank you.
that's going to bring us to agenda item 8.0,
no open form, which is going to bring us to agenda item 9.1,
the approval of the consent agenda.
we have 9.1 the approval, 9.2 the approval of february 8th called board meeting and
minutes and the february 22nd regular board meeting minutes,
9.3 financial statements, 9.4 budget amendment, 9.5 ratification of online tutoring services agreement
and 9.6 the acceptance of grant awards stronger connection grants.
are there any questions?
is there a motion?
>> I recommend approval of the consent agenda as presented.
>> is there a second? >> I'll second. >> miss robinson made the motion and mr. Davis made the second.
let's see here. I'm sorry, y'all. Mid vote?
dianne.
we're going to do voting by show of hands, all in favor?
the motion passes unanimously,
which brings us to agenda item 10.1 consideration and possible action items may 4th,
2024, board of trustees election certification of unopposed candidates. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president board members, miss montalvo is here to present this item is. Miss montalvo.
>> good evening, mr. Vice president, esteemed trustees superintendent dr. Mcfarland,
in line with district goals one through three. As dr. Mcfarland said, we bring item 10.1.
as you know, cisc will conduct a general election on saturday, may 4th.
cisc trustee place 4, miss june davis is the unopposed candidate for
election to the crowley isc board of trustees. Per the office of the secretary of state,
the authority responsible for preparing the ballot must certify the unopposed status to the authority responsible for ordering the election.
attached is a document that needs to be completed and certified by the presiding officer of our political subdivision.
that concludes my presentation, I will take any questions you may have.
>> are there any comments or questions?
this needs to be voted. Is there a motion?
>> I recommend the approval of may 4, 2024, board of trustees election certification of unopposed candidate
declaring june w. Davis isd school board member place 4.
>> we have a motion by miss stephenson. Is there a second?
>> I'll second. >> all of favor by show hands. I'm sorry?
you can just abstain. Sure you can. The motion passes unanimously.
this is going to be your second term.
congratulations, miss davis.
I am going to log out real quickly.
>> thank you, sir. >> that is going to bring us to agenda item 10.2,
set date to canvas ballots for may 4, 2024 school board trustee election.
>> thank you again, mr. Vice president gracio, dr. Mcfarland, and esteemed trustees.
again, as cisc will conduct an election on saturday, may 4,
per cisc board policy bbb legal and election code 67.003.
the board must meet the canvas election returns not later than the 11th day after election day
and not earlier than the later of the third day after election.
the date on which early voting ballot has been verified and counted by
all provisional ballots if a provisional ballot has been cast in the election.
two members of the board constitute a quorum for the purpose
of canvassing an election per the office of the secretary of state.
they recommend the first date of canvass may results, may 7 and in between may 7 and may 15.
the administration respectfully request your consideration to set wednesday, may 15, 2024 at 09:00 a.m. As
a designated date for the purpose of canvassing election ballot returns.
this concludes my presentation. >> thank you, ma'am. What time was that again?
>> 09:00 a.m and we need two trustees to come in.
>> I would be happy to. If anyone else. >> I can come. I'll come with you.
>> it's an action item.
>> I move to set wednesday, may the 15th, 2024, at 09:00 a.m.
the canvas ballots for the may 4, 2024 crowley isd board of trustee elections.
>> miss stevens makes the motion. Is there a second? >> I second.
>> miss robinson made a second. All in favor? I'm sorry?
I think we can vote now. Sorry. Mr. Davis, talk to
me and with miss hall.
>> [inaudible]. >> once again, by a show of hands, all in favor?
the motion passes unanimously. That's going to bring us to agenda,
I'm sorry. Thank you, miss montana. Agenda item 10.3,
rezoning of elementary school attendance boundaries. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> madam president, board, excuse me. Mr. Vice president, board members, I'm sorry.
mr. Vice president and board members, we have mr. Kirsen here to address this item concerning rezoning.
>> dr. Mcfarland, mr. Vice president and member of the board, this presentation will align with all three of our goals.
as you all know, for many months we've been talking about the rezoning process we heard from our demographer back in december and january.
this is because of the growth we've been talking about all night and so we're excited to let you all know that on this next slide,
you will see that we had more than 150 families attend one of our three zoom meetings that were held last week on march 20 and 21st.
the agenda of those meetings, just high level. We talked about how we are growing and planning for the future.
we wanted to make sure families understood what rezoning is and which campuses would be impacted and we talked about next steps and important dates.
all the while, we are focused on our three goals to make sure they were aware of our board goals
but also focused on minimizing the impact on families.
I won't go through the whole presentation we share with them but just for our community members who are unable to attend,
this isn't the board book tonight for the public to see. We ask all of our families who are on that zoom,
and I'm going to ask you all, don't skip ahead. Of the 90 school districts in dfw,
do you know where crowley isd ranks with the new home construction?
there are 90 in dfw. Any guesses on where we rank? Let's show it.
mr. Robinson is super close based on the most recent quarterly review.
we're on number 9. Oh, you did? Oh, I missed it. Mr. Davis got it, good job.
that's 90 districts in dfw, we're number 9. That's a heat map on your right.
that big yellow circle under fort worth is crowley isd and if you advance at one more,
mr. Ellis, you'll see that we're actually number 1 in the southern metroplex. All the way across that i20 corridor on south,
we're number 1. That is why we're growing. We've showed our community this map with our outline in blue but also
those neighborhoods being constructed and more on the way and so that's what's leading to our rezoning.
we took a look at our enrollment trends where we've been, we saw that it was steady there around 14 and 15,000 for
several years and then we started seeing that climb right around 2017.
at the start of this school year we're at 16,971 and then in march we're
at 17,178 and I think miss pattie shared approach at 17,190. As of today with more students, solely que.
then we finally showed our families where our projections are based on either a low or moderate projection.
we show them as well, some of the aerials.
you drive around and you see all the growth but I think when you see it from the sky, especially when you look at the davis elementary attendance zone,
that's davis elementary there, and look at the homes that are being soon to be built.
actually, when we opened that school back in 2019, there really weren't many homes around there at all.
that's why that attendance zone was drawn so large that there'd be enough students go that school.
but now that school is our highest number of enrollment. On the next slide, you'll see a look at s.h.
crowley elementary school, I look at the new homes that are soon to come.
those are some of the hot spots we wanted to look at. As we look through what is rezoning,
I know you all are familiar with this, but we wanted to make sure our parents understood what it is and what factors are considered.
primarily, the capacity of campus, the demographics projections, the geographical proximity to the neighborhoods and bus stops,
transportation patterns, and continuing to focus on minimizing the impact for our families.
just a reminder, based on our demographers projections,
these are the impacted campuses and we're looking at a two-year plan. For next school year, if these are approved by the board,
there would be some changes for dallas park, deer creek, june w. Davis and s.h.
crowley current and future students moving to, as you'll see there on your screen,
mary harris and sue crouch, sydney h. Poynter, dallas park,
and again, mary harris. In '25, '26, we're going to have two other campuses be impacted with
the opening of elementary school number 17 so let's look at that one.
as you all know, a couple of weeks ago or months ago, we looked at some designs of signage that we placed at our bond project sites.
this is that design, our first one we finalized and is in production for elementary school 17.
letting everyone know that this is made possible by bond 2023. It's expected to be completed in fall of '25. Look at that.
just the design and construction will create more than 400 jobs for our community.
elementary 17, on your next slide, we'll see is going to be located in the bridges development that's just west of richard j.
alley middle school and south of 1187 on land that the district already own.
our previous trustees and leaders were forward thinking to get that land and so now we get to put it to use.
that is why we are rezoning this all this information is on our website for
parents to see but we pulled out each area, 1 through 6, for '24, '25, and then '25, '26.
see what happens where the elementary 17 zone is created there for that school by richard alley.
that is what those designs could look like if approved by the board tonight.
we did want to share with our parents the next steps and important dates if this is approved tonight by the board,
and a parent wants their child to stay at their current campus, and we heard from a lot of parents, that was their desire.
we have created a two-step process where they will first submit a transfer interest form,
and that is a link that's actually already live, and we're asking for that by april 15.
after that, everyone who filled out that form will get another reminder to officially submit a transfer request.
that window doesn't open until may 13 but that's when the official request will be submitted.
once you submit that, you will get a response within 10 business days if your request was approved or not.
that is the timeline and the process for families that would like to stay at their current campus.
we'd be happy to answer any questions you have now about rezoning.
>> are there any comments or questions? >> I'm sorry, I do have questions.
[laughter] at this point we have 150 that were in attendance.
>> hundred and fifty families, yes, ma'am. >> hundred and fifty families. Do we know right now how many families are wanting to stay at their campus?
>> the interest form is open but we encourage them to wait to fill out that interest form until the board took action,
just in case there were any changes. Once action is taken either way,
we will begin really working hard to notify families. Previously we did it by email and phone call and text.
we'll continue to do that but actually we'll get a written letter, mail to their home saying where their child currently attends,
where they're zone to attend, and if they'd like to stay, here's the two-step process they need to do. That's why that interest form is really beneficial for us and
our principal so they have an idea of what those numbers are looking like. >> if you have a family that's probably closer to best race,
they're going to june davis, how are you prioritizing for families to be able to stay?
I know you said they would get a letter but what are you doing,
I guess, to gauge who stays and who doesn't? >> absolutely. The factors that we look at are the current capacity at the campus.
we also, the principals, work with central office to look at the students attendance and even the discipline issues.
we want to, like we said, minimize that change for those families, and our goal is to approve every request to stay that we can.
that's our priority in this, and so that's why we want to encourage that two-step process so we can know who is desiring to stay.
now, for new families who move in, they wouldn't have that option, they would automatically be zoned to that new attendance zone.
you'll start seeing this impact a lot of those new families but our goal is for the families who want to stay at their current school, they can do that.
>> thank you. >> there are any other questions?
this is a possible action item. Is there a motion?
>> I recommend approval of the elementary school attendance zone boundary rezoning as presented.
>> we have a motion by miss robinson. >> is there a second?
>> second. >> I'll second.
>> miss davis? Miss stephenson.
if we can move to vote online. The motion passes unanimously.
I'm excited for this next step and eager to see,
which brings us to agenda item 10.4:
localized policy manual update 122. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president, board members, ms. Batiste will address this item.
>> good evening again, vice president, gracia, board of trustees, and dr. Mcfarland.
update 122, local policy overview will address thriving students, all three board calls.
basically, update 122 is dealing with current legislative policies
that were put into effect during the 88th legislative session,
and most of the local policy recommendations in this update are intended to clarify current policy.
we're going to be looking at cqb, csa,
dc, dec, ehb, ehbca, and all of those are local policies.
you'll see next to each one of those, the senate bills or the house bills that put
some requirements in place for the board to approve what we're doing.
in addition to those, we'll also be looking at fea,
ffac, fb, and fl local, and again,
you'll see the senate bills and house bills that were put in place that trigger us to have to address these.
in csa local, this is something to do with basically how we are handling facilities,
standard safety, and security. The recommendation is to add a new policy,
basically displaying more information about how we grant
access control to our campus audits and to our campus security measures.
basically what has happened is our administration has made some recommendations to keep
some logs accessible to you all and do those weekly reports and keeping that accessible to you all.
we are asking that you approve this recommendation as
presented by tasby by our administration.
the next one is cqb, technology resources, and cybersecurity.
again, to comply with sb 271 revision is
made basically that will deal with breach notifications,
and so the recommendation is to approve as presented by tasby.
on dc local, this one is basically something that
house bill 1789 put into place which would allow districts to
hire bus drivers because there's a shortage and that would make an exception for nepotism.
again, the recommendation is to approve, as presented by tasby.
on ehb, curriculum design, and special programs,
basically adding new text to what's required by
the school district and the standards that the commissioner implemented for students with dyslexia.
this again is from hb 3928 and we are requesting to adopt this as recommended by tasby.
on ehbc local and ehbca local,
this is pertaining to recording
accelerated instruction provisions and to revisit the response to hb 1461,
which clarifies when a parent may request a particular teacher and district to develop an accelerated learning plan.
again, the recommendation is to approve as recommended by tasby.
fda local is in regards to attendance,
and sb 68 is allowing
excuse absences for students to explore professional and career professional field trips.
we've been implementing that this school year at the beginning, but again,
to get it official and make it part of our regular policy,
we're asking that you approve as presented.
ffac local, you all addressed this last year and this is about handling
situations in distress like the nark in and any other [inaudible] pants.
we were ahead of the game with that, but this is also a part of update 122, and so again,
we're going to keep our current policy in place but we're going to make it official as part of this update.
student welfare crisis intervention, ffb local.
basically, hb3 is requiring that we add a provision that will establish a clear process for students to report
concerning behavior by another student and to add new text regarding
employees reporting of potential threats to meet sb 1720 requirements,
and the recommendation from the administration is to approve, as presented by tasby.
one that has gotten a lot of press lately and a lot of attention is something new.
there is no policy in place in regards to this right now,
and this is sb 763. This one went before not only our administration,
but also our policy review committee which is the board of trustees,
and it's in regards to employ chaplains or possibly
allowing chaplains to volunteer in the school district as an actual chaplain.
the recommendation from our policy review committee
was to not make this part of our policy, and it would require a resolution to be read, either way,
the board decides to go with this at the conclusion of this report.
in summary, the crowley isd administration reviewed the recommendations presented by
tasby from december 18th through march 18th, 2024.
I'll go back and say that. From december 18th, 2023 to march 18th, 2024, the board of trustees,
policy review committee recommends the adoption of the local policies in
addition to the crowley isd administration and what has been recommended by tasby.
this concludes update 122. Are there any questions at this time?
>> thank you, ms. Batiste. Are there any questions or comments?
ladies, do you have anything? This is a possible action item, is there a motion?
>> I recommend approval of local policy manual update 122 as presented,
along with the resolution, as required by senate bill 763,
that crowley isd does not permit a district campus to employee or accept,
as a volunteer, a chaplain to provide support, services and programs for students at this time.
>> we have a motion by miss davis or a second. >> I'll second.
>> we have a second by miss stephenson. Moved to vote.
the motion passes unanimously. Thank you, ma'am.
which brings us to future action items. Agenda 11.1 grant awards,
learning acceleration, support opportunities. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president, board members, we have miss polk here to address this item.
>> good evening, mr. Vice president, board of trustees, and dr. Mcfarland.
tonight's board exhibit aligns with all three of our goals and I'm excited
tonight to be able to announce a few of the grants that crowley isd has received.
our first grant is all coming from the learning acceleration support opportunities grant,
which we're going to call laso. This is a competitive grant, it's the second one that tea has released and
crowley isd applied for three grants and we received all three grants. The first one tonight is our technology lending grant,
and we're going to receive $180,000 to be able to purchase technology devices for
instructional materials and many software programs or anything that's dealing with tech support.
our next grant is adsy,
summer learning acceleration grant, and this is going to help support our adsy over the summer for our elementary,
david walker and meadowcreek. We've received 476,088,
$800,000 to support that this summer.
our last grant that we received is our school action fund planting grant that received $370,000 and
the purpose of this grant is to truly help redesign one of our elementary campuses as well as one of our middle school campuses.
and in conclusion, we received almost a little over a million dollars for a total of a grant award.
that concludes my presentation.
>> that's a great presentation. Are there any comments or questions?
>> we have a question. The learning accelerated grant,
that's for staff over the summer?
>> the learning acceleration grant is a hub where tea just list multiple grants and
we're able to apply under that name for all three of those grants.
>> it's going to be used over the summer periods for walker and meadowcreek? >> yes, ma'am. The acceleration learning grant will be
used over the summer for meadowcreek as well as david walker.
>> thank you. >> you're welcome. >> miss davis. >> comment. Thank you, miss polk.
you are always looking at ways to secure funding
so that we can continue doing things for students. Thank you.
>> thank you. Thank the team. All of us work together. >> thank you and your team. Thank you.
>> are there any other comments? Thank you, miss polk.
>> thank you. >> which brings us to agenda item 11.2,
regional day school program for the deaf shared services agreement membership. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president, board members, we have ms. Batiste prepared to address this item.
>> please. >> good evening again, vice president grassia,
board of trustees, and dr. Mcfarland. This is just to bring to your attention that our annual contract renewal for the regional day school program for the deaf is
coming back around and there are no major changes to the actual agreement.
we will still be the primary provider for students who
are considered deaf or hard of hearing for our partner districts in alvarado,
burleson, cleburne, everman, joshua, johnson county shared services arrangement,
which consist of godley, grandview, keene, and rio vista. But the majority of the students are our crowley isd students,
and we're happy to be able to provide this program for them right here within their home district.
this concludes our presentation. Are there any questions at this time?
>> thank you, ms. Batiste. Are there any comments or questions? Thank you.
>> thank you.
>> which brings us to agenda item 11.3, renewal of skyward erp system agreement. Dr. Mcfarland.
>> mr. Vice president, board members, mr. Fisher is prepared to address this item. Fisher?
>> yes, sir. Good evening again, mr. Vice president, distinguished members of the board, dr. Mcfarland.
this item is a future action item just to let the board know that the renewal of
our skyward enterprise resource planning system is coming due.
I believe that our current agreement expires on june 30th and as such,
we will be seeking approval of the renewal of our contract board.
I've placed in your board agenda item if you will,
the extended pricing of the agreement. The software as a system is actually really two parts.
it is the software skyward and it is also the hosting of skyward with iscorp is the recommendation.
that is a cloud-based solution that would help with cybersecurity issues.
we currently don't have that cloud-based system now.
this renewal will be coming forward. We'll bring back cost analysis to the board perhaps through
your board update and seeking approval at the next board meeting.
that concludes my presentation. If there are any questions, I will answer those now.
>> thank you, mr. Fisher. Are there any comments or questions? Mr. Davis? >> thank you, mr. Vice president. Mr. Fisher.
I'm just curious, what's the overall cost savings to three-year term over the one year?
we see in the breakdown, but considering the number of students and what have you,
I'm just curious if we know what those overall numbers are. >> yes, sir. If we selected the one-year agreement,
the cost would increase approximately $58,000 which is about a 14% increase in just year one.
if we elected to go with the three-year agreement.
in year one, the cost would increase about 4% about $17,000.
but in year two, it would only increase one and a half, another $12,000,
so you can see significant disparity, or the difference, I should say,
between the one-year agreement and the three-year agreement. >> the cost is still adjusted,
so we're not locking in pricing for three years. There still are increases
to the service each year even though we have a three-year agreement?
>> we will be locking in the price of each one of the individual items,
the hr processes, the business services processes.
the only escalator is it's driven on a cost-per-student basis.
so yes, the escalator really is the growth. Yes, sir. >> thank you.
>> are there any other comments or questions? Thank you, mr. Fisher.
>> thank you.
>> that's going to bring us to agenda item 13.1,
consider making a finding that an employee resigned on their contract after
the 45th before the first day of instruction of the 2023,
2024 school year without good cause. Is there a motion?
>> mr. Vice president, the board makes a finding that good cause did not exist under texas education code,
section 21.210, c2,
for benjamin lita, resignation of his probationary contract for the 2023, 2024 school year.
the board did not consent to his resignation. Benjamin lita has failed to perform his contract,
and the board authorizes the superintendent to file a complaint with the state board for educator certification
to seek sanctions for his abandonment of contract.
>> we have a motion by mr. Davis. Is there a second? >> second.
>> we have a second by miss robinson. We have to vote.
the motion passes unanimously.
dr. Mcfarland, is there any other?
with no further business to bring forward to the board, we are adjourned at 8:59 pm.
thank you very much. Have a blessed weekend.