The time is 4 16 p.m. We have a
quorum and the meeting has been duly posted. Good evening and
welcome to the board briefing of the dallas independent school district board of trustees. We will forgo the
pledge of allegiance and salute to the texas flag as we just did both moments ago. The
following trustees are physically present or participating simultaneously by video conference. A quorum
of the board is physically present at this location. Trustee for district 2 sarah
weinberg, district 3 dan michke, district 4 prisma garcia, district 5 byron
sanders, district 6 joyce foreman was here in his
in the building, district 7 ben mackey, district 9 ed
turner, dr. Stephanie elizalde, our superintendent of schools, joins us and I'm joe carrero, trustee for
district 8 and board president. This meeting will be available simultaneously in english and spanish at dallasist.org.
in order for the board to hold this meeting in an effective manner I want
to let it be known that this meeting will be conducted in an orderly fashion and ask the public to abide by the rules outlined
in board policy b.e.d. Local pertaining to public participation. It is a criminal offense
for a person with the intent to prevent or disrupt a lawful meeting to substantially obstruct or interfere
with the ordinary conduct of a meeting by physical action or verbal utterance and thereby
curtail the exercise of others first amendment rights. Speakers are cautioned that what they say could violate the rights of others under the law
of defamation or revocation of the law. If they are unsure of the legal effect
of their remarks, they may want to seek legal advice prior to the utterance. Any person who becomes boisterous,
disruptive, or fails to abide by the rules of this assembly while addressing the board or while attending this meeting
shall be asked to leave. Failure to leave when requested to do so may result
in the person being escorted from the meeting and subject to arrest. Trustees will now turn to agenda item 3. Public forum. Our agenda now
calls for the public forum segment of our meeting. We will have speakers to non-agenda items. I am asking speakers
to be mindful of children that are in attendance. Children and unwilling adult recipient members of the public
in attendance at this meeting should not be exposed to lewd, filthy, vulgar, obscene, or explicit language from speakers. Speakers that
insist on exposing the public to this language shall be asked to leave immediately.
further, please be mindful of your fellow speakers and refrain from using the individual's name, name
of the person, or name of the person. In order to include students' names and to address the board and not individual trustees,
the district has adopted procedures to hear and address complaints about specific individuals, and it is recommended that speakers
avail themselves of the grievance policy to seek relief via those procedures. Audience, I am asking not to engage in comment that will
disrupt the meeting. The rules of order in the quorum will be enforced during the public comment period
to ensure efficient meetings on lawful or disruptive conduct, including interrupting scheduled speakers, speaking at a turn, crossing
out throat thought barriers, or interfering with the rights of others will not be tolerated. Each participant is legally
responsible for the content and consequences of his or her own statements. Speakers, please be reminded
that substitutions are not allowed. If you signed up to speak, you cannot speak on behalf of someone else. Speakers who fail to adhere to
this rule will be interrupted and informed that your comments are out of order. Ms. Flores, will you please call the names of the speakers?
good afternoon. I would like to remind the speakers that you have three minutes to speak. Will speakers robert
ceccarelli and mike hook please come to the microphone?
good afternoon, everybody. I gave you these sheets here. Take a look at the bottom. It says 24-25, the rankings
of the schools.
at the bottom there, when you start the first column, where it says woodrow
wilson, everybody following that please? Woodrow wilson, this is the overall grades
of the scores by children at risk. Woodrow wilson had a c, and now
about five or six down. You see all those d's and f's? Everybody see it? Say yes or
no, please. We know what we're talking about. Because you're not even paying attention, you don't deserve to be here. Really, you don't.
okay? So he had six f's, this is 24, and he had about 14 d's
for college overall score for the high schools. Go to the fourth column,
student achievement. Go across, woodrow wilson, the fourth
column, c, and go all the way down near the middle. You see
all the d's and f's, starting with melina, the fourth column.
you're not looking, please. Take a look, please, and give me my attention,
please. You see all those f's. Okay? Now, college readiness. Seventh column. One, two,
three, four, five, six, seven. Seventh column, go
down the middle, f, and all those d's, and look at all those f's
at the bottom. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Ten f's. College readiness.
let me tell you something. Parents look at college readiness. Tea does not score
college readiness at all. Now, also, with the tea, they
do 70% progress or student achievement. Student achievement is not even
included. It needs to be included. That's what the parents look for. That's how
south oak cliff did so well, because of their progress. They got a c
in student achievement. That should have been included in the final grade, and they did not do it.
I don't think nobody knows how they score the high schools by tea,
but I'm telling you right now, and the 30% is the education gap. I'm trying
to understand what that means. Does that mean that the blacks did 10% better
on the staar test, and the whites did 20%? Does that mean the blacks did minus 10%? I don't understand that.
okay? Maybe you can explain to me, ms. Alzadre, what that means.
all I'm saying to you is that they had the rankings on the left side
of the schools. There were four of them last year got the
bottom ten. Kimball is at the bottom, second straight year, ms. Foreman. Kimball and
wilma hutchins. Wilma hutchins also. Okay?
but this is a good guide for the parents to receive to see how they're doing. All
right? Now, you can tell me what college readiness is, but it's very, very important. Without that,
they're only going to have a high school diploma. Okay? Also, they also include
military, right, for student achievement. Thank you, mr. Checker. Your
time has expired. Mike hook, will you please come to the microphone? Mike hook,
not present. Mr. President, this concludes our public forum. Thank you, trustees. We'll now
turn to agenda item five, closed session. The board will retire
to closed session pursuant to texas government code section 551 concerning the following
sections. The board will retire to closed session. The public and staff are welcome to stay
in the room or connected online while the board leaves the meeting to attend the closed session. The public portion
of the meeting will resume after closed session. The board will retire to closed session pursuant to
texas government code section 551 concerning any and all purposes permitted
by the act, including but not limited to the following. Section 551.071 for private consultation
with the attorney about pending or contemplated litigation or on a matter in which the duty of the attorney
to the governmental body under the texas disciplinary rules of professional conduct of the state bar of texas
clearly conflicts with this chapter. Section 551.072
to deliberate the purchase, exchange, lease, sale, or value of real property.
section 551.074 to deliberate the appointment, employment, evaluation,
reassignment, duty, discipline, or dismissal of a public officer or employee, including provisionary and term contract
employees listed in the statutory items. And section 551.129 to consult
with attorneys by use of telephone, videoconference, videoconference call, or communications
over the internet in an open meeting and or closed meeting. Thank you.
thank you. The time is 446 pm. And we are back
in open session. 46 p.m. And we are back in open session the book the board took
no action in closed session trustees will now turn to agenda item 6 a board policy
a local instructional goals and objectives annual report superintendent. Thank you president carry on members of the board I'm gonna have chief
hewitt powell along with deputy chief alvarenga and
dr. Cheryl nevels come bring us
this for a reminder this
presentation usually was done by deputy superintendent
brian lusk who is now superintendent in el paso isd so we now move those
responsibilities chief hewitt powell has taken some of this
on and as you all know some of the other responsibilities like athletics went to our
chief academic officer now, we're chief academic athletic officer angie gaylord, so
you've seen the presentation that discussion that we'll have
this this afternoon you've seen all of these data before
but you haven't seen them collectively and so this is I think maybe connected
to yesterday's discussion and presentation where are you
monitoring as a board policies? That are directly related to student outcomes or your goals
and I would say this is one of those this is a local policy nonetheless related completely
related to student academic achievement and so
with that I am going to and I would like to I know we hear from some
speakers I'm not sure speakers understand the rules of board meetings as we are not allowed
to interact. It's just a public forum however, our team has actually we are interested
in sometimes where data come from that are presented to this board children at risk
defines college readiness in a very different way than the texas education agency does and
so for this upcoming board update,
I'll be sharing with you a side-by-side that chief hewitt powell's team along
with I think I see mr. Cortez in here over there has helped us from
assessment and accountability in his team so that you can understand and actually te8
does evaluate college career military readiness and college
readiness. They just do it in a different way and so we are comparing apples
to lettuce because it's not even a fruit. It's very
different. So this is not apples to oranges and we do want to share that because we are
always interested and do want to make sure that our information to our public is
transparent and and is accurate but it is the texas education agency who evaluates school
districts so with that we'll get to a local e a local. Excuse me
e a local. I'll turn that over to chief you a pile thank you.
good afternoon president carry on superintendent and trustees before I begin I'm going
to share this story want to stay in line with how dr. Lesk I'll stay true
to his honor and share a story about a student and I wanted to share the story of naya
rosetta she's a student at the townview school of education and she just recently
completed an internship this past summer and also had an opportunity to share her experience
with students at our recent career expo fair and she started the school of
education she did an internship with dallas isd counseling
services and now this this fall she will become a freshman
at the university of the incarnate work at word
to study pre optometry and so you're thinking how does she get there?
and I think her story really reflects our goal to ensure that every students grad
graduate with real pathways and that every student also have as an opportunity to sort
of choose their own path based on the experiences and the opportunities that we give them
next slide so I'm going to begin a brief summary
of our ea local metrics before walking through each of these with a little bit more detail
so overall the big takeaway, I think from this slide is that we can continue
to see progress across all of our five ccm our metrics with increases in college and
career readiness industry-based certifications post-secondary credentials financial aid in
college enrollment our tsi readiness increased by eight percentage points representing
02,910 students for the class of 2024 meeting those college
readiness benchmarks and this represents six hundred and forty more students than the
prior year for industry-based certifications we had 42 percent
of the class earn an ibc even under the increased state rigor and our level one and level two
certs increased by more than 200 from the prior year
for fasta and tasfa, we can see strong completion rates at 94% and our college enrollment
increased to 52% and this means that four thousand four hundred
and forty-two students enrolled in college immediately upon
graduation and so all this together just means that more of our students are leaving dallas isd with opportunities
to access both college and career readiness pathways next slide, please and so again,
I'm just echo with dr. Elizalde stated and this just just to say
with prior reports you've seen this before this particular metric key metric one
represents our lagged data and this we're going to report
on class of 2024, which is tied to our 2025 accountability data and below you'll also see the
class of 2025 estimates and we'll receive that official data this summer during our
2026 accountability cycle so you'll see it below three points
of reference class of 2023 2024 and 2025 for the class
of 2024 we increased from 26 percent to 34 percent in each percentage point gain
and again, this represents 600 more students meeting that
benchmark for the class of the 2025 you can see maybe a
slight decrease of a percentage point but I want
to make sure that we look at this with important context if you look we can see that we
actually tested 8,477 students in the class of 2024, but nine
thousand and two hundred and eighty students in the class
of 2025 which is an increase of 800 students and what we can also see is that we had more
students reach our benchmark by 160 students and so this
just tells us that even while we're expanding access we are also increasing more students
who meet the benchmark I also like to highlight our positive trend for our african-american and
our emerging bilingual students which reflects a progress across all of our student groups and just if you will
take a look at the footnote and I know it's very tiny because I can barely see it
with my reading glasses on but I will just say this that this metric is actually also aligned
to our gpm 5.1 our prior gpm 5.1 and it was to ensure that
we met this benchmark by 39 percent of our students by
august 2025 and if we were in that benchmark actually included the college readiness
coursework so if we were to take our tsi assessment data
and that college readiness coursework and put it together we'd actually have exceeded
that benchmark and met it at 70% of our students and far exceeding that particular
target next we'll talk about our industry-based certification so this
particular key metric again is also lag data and it's aligned to our former gpm 5.2
with a target of 37 and we can see that we've landed at 42 for
exceeding that particular target and so over the past
three years you'll see in the 2025 estimate you can see sort
of decreased numbers but again, I'll also provide some context
in the past three years we've had some changes in how this particular metric is evaluated
so in class of 2023 students can earn this this particular ccmr credit by taking a course
with that it had an approved certification and they could
pass that course they could receive it and then in 2024 they had to take the certification
along with one additional course by 2025 we have to have two aligned courses
plus within the same program of study and pass your certification meanwhile the
certification courses that were approved by tea have shifted
each year as well and so again, we can see continued progress if we were
to apply those same metrics across all the years we would see improvement as well next
slide key metric 3 and so for key metric 3 we can see
that we had 741 students earned certification our original
goal for g or target pardon me for this for gpm 5.3 was
to earn 450 certificates certificates, pardon me level
1 and level 2 certificates by 2025 and you can see that this class far exceeded that goal
and an increase also by 200 from the prior year and again
just to remind you all and to provide some additional context level 1 certificates require
15 to 20 42 credit hours and level 2 certificates require 30 to 51 college credit hours
and so I just want to also say that this work with increased and we can see
positive trends even while the team worked to align these course sequences
in the way that was meaningful for students so that we could transfer these college credits
to four-year universities next
slide okay, and again for a key metric
for we can see that the class of 2025 achieved a 94%
completion rate, which is exceptionally strong and we know that again this
metric was also impacted by changes over the last few years notably the class of 2024 had a
delayed rolled out in
december. I think they rolled it out in december of 31st of that particular year
in a full rollout in april and how they could complete their tasks on fafsa and so this past
class of 2025 they had an opportunity to roll theirs out in december 1st but we know
that there were changing timelines we had some opt-outs due to some national changes
in in rules and in spite
of that, we know that our counselors our schools had really tight systems. There was
really proactive reaching we they made proactive opportunities to reach out
to parents and to families and students and so with that we can see strong
progress here and then for the final metric
of the percent of our students who graduate week with post and enrolled in college
immediately followed in their senior year. We can see the increased from 49 to
52 percent of our students and so across these student groups
if you would just take a look below we can see a really positive entry and what our
emergent bilingual students increasing by seven percentage points
from 22 to 24 and then our african-american students increasing
by five percentage points from the prior year now we know there are still some gaps and
there's still some work to do but we can definitely see some positive progress here and we
know one key driver of the the improvement in this work is the summer mail program
that has been a key lever for for the team and for our students in dallas isd
and we just think this overall it reflects a more an intentional system with helping
to support our students and our next slide and so while we're
seeing progress again I'll just restate that we know there's more work to do and these are some
of the next steps that we'll see in the upcoming school year first. We'll see in an area
of focus. We're awaiting some task the guidance regarding a
local which will require us to include military readiness
we are also going to bring forward some adjustments maybe to our level one and level two
certificate certificates metric and in addition to that there
will be some refinements and how this particular policy is reported to
to the board and secondly, we will also continue to work
on our adjustments to our curriculum for tsi we
have really implemented some adaptive platforms to help our students and embedded
curriculum daily embedded curriculum support and then finally, we'll continue our
quarter monitoring of our ccm our metrics with along with ipc ibcs and our
clear targets and with that we are prepared
to take questions trustee
weber great report so thorough. I have a few questions just
clarifying questions one of the questions I have is
related to the estimated 33% of kids meeting the tsi just
clarifying that is does that include college bridge or not
include college bridge? That does not include college bridge. Awesome. Okay, and then
is that so it's both language and math, correct?
so do you have the numbers of what percentage students?
past language past math yes, we do and for 2025 we have 46%
of do you want it for 2025 or for 20 to 25? Okay for 2025 we have 40% of 46% of students who
passed elar 42% passed math and
then 33% passed both and if we
were to say how many passed only elar it was 12.9 percent
past elar 8.9 percent past math with a total of students
passing one the other or both
being a 55% thank you if I could add just a little color to that so if we take the 13%
that passed elar but didn't pass math and the 9%
that passed math but didn't pass elar we would able
to actually add 21% 22% more of our students actually met part
of this requirement and so these are thank you for asking
us that question that that's that other area that we're going to continue to work on because when we can get those
students to meet that other component and how far are they if they met the math now I just
need to work on the elar we can you can see that if I get when we get that 22% over we're
gonna see a really big jump from a 33 you'll be able
to we'll be able to add 22 and then we'll be at 55. Those are realistic they're audacious,
but they're realistic. We just have to keep and we're getting there each year. We are making
improvement, but the team is really focused on making sure we we are able
to find and identify what areas if I didn't do the elar what is
it that I need to work on? Thank you, I think y'all forgot
to start my clock oh, there it is, okay. Thank you okay, I
just wanted to make sure I was on time okay, can you really quickly also talk about the
2025 being an estimate just the timing I just to reiterate
yeah, so 2025 there's we have this estimate and it'll be a part of the 2026 accountability
cycle so we'll get that data in in july and this summer
summer final data this summer and then and then we'll see
estimate data for 2026, but it won't be final for a really long time
from now, right? But we'll get to see kind of what progress we're making yes, despite that, but it won't be official
for tea and for accountability and for outcome dollars okay you
mentioned military readiness and that you all are going to be kind
of revising how you track that do we have the capability to know that number now?
we you want to you want to answer it's a little complicated I'll ask I remember it's having the conversation
that it's company we were supposed to get from the department of war. We were supposed
to get the current number it has not been provided to us in the previous in the past we
used to get what are called the dd for forms department of defense form
for and then we used to get that physically, but then they switched it and said
we're going to get it electronically and we have yet to get that so we're
just that's a piece of data that we are hoping to get in in our anticipating. Okay,
great and then I guess what tools I hear you talking about sort of the math is past
that the language is passed and sort of what tools are you using to?
to to help students understand what they need to do in order to accomplish their college and
career readiness I can answer this, but I'd like for a dr. Nevels to answer because it's really complex. Go ahead
comprehensive yeah, so first we do still use the texas
college bridge tool in the college prep course and at the end of that course we do assess
another adaptive tool is kaplan. And so we've used kaplan at multiple campuses
and so that's one of the tools where that's coupled with face-to-face intervention
for students we also have the edgenuity platform that is used
and that's been used for multiple years we have college spring. So there are
several tools that we're implementing with campuses. That's helpful what I think I didn't phrase it quite right is
how do you all how do the campuses know? What tool do the campuses have to know you know that that
tiffany and cheryl and sarah? Here ready not there ready,
you know kind of their their multivariable equation that makes them ready
for their next step thank you for the clarity so we do have a comprehensive dashboard a
salesforce dashboard that we use and campuses can pull real-time data
from students and so it talks to accuplacer so after students test we have real-time data
campuses can go in and pull down student reports and they can see exactly where students
are and and students kind of have an idea themselves their own agency as well to kind of
know that they're making progress on their path great
wait one last question and I
had a question on the just clarifying
on the emergent bilingual and
hispanic in the venn diagram how can you give me those
buckets of numbers of what percent
of emergent bilingual or hispanic and what percent are not we would need
to pull that data out from you because they can be double counted, okay, just
in the trackers great. Yes, great all right. Thank you all
so much just image good thank you for this report, it's very very encouraging let
me also thank you for pointing out the raw numbers in a couple of situations and
there was one that that that is actually not a focus
of this metric but that really jumped out at me and that was the the number
of total graduates so we had in the class of 2024 8,477
in the class of 2025 9,280 that's a that's a pretty big jump and and I think
congratulations are in order
for that. Thank you and another another item that did jump out at me was in on the page 7 the
percentage
of graduates enrolled in college following their senior year of high school you know
and and the african-american students are leading away on that on that metric so very
proud of the progress progress there I did find it a little
hard to follow the changes the trying to go apples
to apples or apples to lettuce apples to giraffes
whatever the analogy is and I'm just just wondering if you
could provide additional detail like if the old rules were
in place here's the what-if because right now it doesn't
really show that we've made progress for anybody who's just
picking this up. It just looks like we we went backwards or
you can do it the what-if the other way, you know what if the new rules that applied
in the prior year, but but I but I do think it is important for us to be transparent about
we're how we're moving and and in this case, it looks like
we're moving backwards when we're actually moving forward and I that's the kind of
for me the worst of all worlds that we're moving forward and it looks
like we're moving backwards without without the appendix for that so I do can applaud
the progress going forward but I would like it to be more clear that we are going forward
that when we change the rules that then gives the gives of
gives a false impression I do I do want to respond though. I
mean they're smiling because we had this conversation and we and actually assistant superintendent cortez attempted
to have his team do the analytics because it is a multi-level change it affects
every single student in different ways. So we actually couldn't do a apply
the rules across the board. It was way more complex than what we thought so we'll get back together though to find another
way because that's that's you're having the conversation they're looking at me because
we had this conversation only you're talking. I was talking to them that day it's the same thing because obviously
to your point trustee mitch gave that 59, right? That shows even
on this key metric 2 and then it's like our actual for the 2425 is a 42. It's like wait,
we went minus 17. No, we didn't go minus 17 there were a whole bunch of ibcs that counted
towards that 59 that did not
count when we ended up at the 42, so we'll try to figure
out how to get you a more quantifiable number let me amend my request where it is
reasonably easy to do so can
you highlight it in a in a more visible way?
even if the footnote is is bigger because because right now the way I the way I I
looked at it at first it was like how did we fall backwards?
and even though there was this really small print footnote down there I couldn't quite make make sense of it. And I I
just think I just would hope we can clarify that a bit then
on the texas success initiative this this is an area where
funding is attached to to each to each student who achieves a
tsi rating. Is that correct? And um, and I know it varies
by by students or does it vary by district if it's an economically disadvantaged the
dollars vary so if we have economically disadvantaged kids that attain the same the metric
is the same but the dollars that are attached are based on demographic filters and
just it's ballpark. What are those numbers? Does anybody haven't you know, is it like a
thousand or fifteen hundred dollars? We have so yeah, you can answer
so for economically disadvantaged,
it's five thousand dollars and for non economically
disadvantaged is three thousand and then for special education students. It's an additional four
thousand okay, so not not insignificant so and and you
can qualify for tsi if you earn
an associate's degree
correct. Okay. So I told you this question was coming so we
did see and I want to thank communications for highlighting conrad high
school we're a hundred and three graduating students
earned an associate's degree. That was over 40% of the class I know I want to
make sure everybody has heard that four times so but but what
I was really really getting at on that is that that's that
school is outperforming every other school and there are a
couple that are kind of close molina and I think wt white and
and then there are a lot that are not really very close and
so, you know, my my question when I see that is okay there
are some there's got to be some reason why that that is and it
could be the kind of program that is is there that it's one
that keeps kids interested and they want to stay the course or it could be things that the
schools are doing like, you know extra counselors or more
check-ins or better
partnership opportunities. I don't I don't know what they are but I would just think that
when you've got, you know, such a phenomenal result. I mean you think about dallas isd students
and particularly in that feeder pattern with two-thirds
of the kids not speaking english and over 90% of them being economically
disadvantaged. That is an amazing story and you know, we we should
like we always try to do I know this we try to find best practices wherever
they are but here's a place where we've got something that
is really going so well, and you know, so my question is why isn't everybody up there
trying to figure out? What the secret sauce is and
apply it in other schools? So I'm gonna begin this question, but really the work is dr.
neville's and so I'll let her continue the answer without taking up too much time that you told me this question was
coming and I went and asked the team and she said oh, but we are and she said not only,
you know can we see the campuses that are doing extremely well because we've taken some
of the things that we've learned from conrad we've been able to see gains and other campuses
by 15 and 20 points because of the learning and so some of
the learning includes the work that they do with their
counselors and with the team on being really proactive on how they use their
collaborative. So it's a really true a plc it's collaborative plc around the the
in the data that they receive for students so when she'll talk about interventions in a quick second,
they are really intentional about the interventions and how they use that data and so that's something you just
heard. Dr. Novel speak to that. They have applied now across the system in addition just quickly that
you know she said there's something that's really that you can see a campus is that
are very successful and that is that p tech is a part of the entire culture so
whether you're the coach the custodian whoever it is a part of the culture
of the entire campus and it's not seen as sort of a program on the campus and so some of
the learning that they've gotten from conrad whether it's culture whether it's how they
use their collaborative time or how they respond to interventions are things that
they're applying across the system for other campuses as well and
you'll see that in our in the updates that they're doing especially this school year
okay thank you. I it's just a phenomenal story and I think even with the attention that
we've been giving it lately it's just so dallas isd for
for the kids with the most challenges
to have that kind of success and it's a it's a
great story, and I hope we tell it more and I hope we figure out a way to replicate it
across the district. Thank you alright next I have a trustee
for me thank you just just a few questions, and I want to start
with military readiness how do
we have? The units on all of the high school campuses and middle
school campuses or is it just on specific high school and do
you mean the rotc classes the
just yes, so we just heard
from chief gaylord, it's all high school campuses. I don't know that it's across all
middle school campuses so could could I ask
for the campuses and the number of students that are enrolled
in each one of those? Because I for me, I think
that's extremely important in military readiness is a part of what we're supposed to be trying to do so I'd like
to see those numbers please and
on the second so on the
certifications we had I'm trying to see how many students we had
with certifications one second
50s pages here so I'm on page five the level one or level two
and I see an increase in number of graduates. How many actual?
students do we have in the
the swim blank on the centers that we have the career
institutes so we can answer that question are you are you
referring to we have four career institutes we have three
that are open three that are open. And so how many students
do we have currently? We have about 6,000 about 6,000 current
students but when I look
at the classes 2025 we show nine thousand two hundred and eighty. So did we drop
in number or? Those are the total number of graduates not a number
of students. Okay career institute so we have a and this
is for their year. It's for the class of 25. So it's
last year. Yes, ma'am okay, so we had nine thousand two hundred and eighty,
but now we have six thousand no, but those are two the six
thousand are a subset of that number so not every student goes to a career institute,
right? So we had last year nine thousand two hundred and eighty
graduates and of those last year we maybe had around 800
seniors 800 seniors of this nine thousand two hundred and
eighty were of the ninety to eighty around 800 were
at the career institute and they got a certification
about seven hundred and about seven hundred forty one did yes, ma'am got a certification so can I can I just make an
amendment to that so the level one and level two certificates
are related to dual dual credit and could could be there but I
think what we're mostly looking at our certifications which are on slide four for
for the career institute so you can see how that can be confusing, right? Yeah, this is
the way tea this is the way that they we were only putting
it the way tea they have industry-based certifications which is one list and they give
us credit for those when students are successful that's metric to trustee foreman
on page four and those students are attending our career institutes some of those those
of those students we have a good percentage that are
earning iv c's through career institutes then on metric three which is on
page five which is the one you started with these are a different type
of certification it's a certificate and it has to be in conjunction with dallas
college or another institution of higher ed but we mostly partner with
dallas college and so it's in conjunction with getting associates these were the ones
if you recall when we were doing some of the associates that weren't all transferring
to to four-year degrees so some of these we don't always want
students necessarily getting the associates degrees that are
connected to these level one and level two because if they go to a four-year college, they
lose those college hours don't transfer
over I get that I get that but the reporting can be somewhat confusing when you are trying
to break down actually what's happening particularly in specific areas.
I do get you trying to report based
on what tea is asking but I'm trying to understand exactly what we're doing in
specific areas so that can be somewhat confusing and if you
could break it down a little bit more for me
we can we can sit with you so I can I want to make sure we get you what
you're what how you're thinking so we can get it to you that way. Yes, ma'am.
thank you trustee mackey. Yeah, first of all, congratulations I think if I
looked at it correctly all of these wonderful red yellow green are green, right? Thank
you for putting this back. Also, it's super helpful I know there's so much work that has
gone in behind the scenes across all the campuses to do this and to see this kind of sustained
growth over time. That's not easy to do. So kudos I'd love to keep up on the conversation
on tsi since that's one that is only going to become more and
more important as the state changes it's accountability
metrics, etc and again, congratulations
on this really strong growth trustee mitch can't kind of hit on some of one
of my questions here do we have a range if we were to look at high school feeder patterns,
for instance? What the highest like what's the range between the highest performing feeder
pattern and the lowest performing feeder pattern? We can provide that information
to you yeah, I'd be happy to provide that information to you, but I don't think it's going to
be the highest performing feeder pattern we can provide that information to you. Yeah, I'd be really interested
to see that. It seems like dan had already done his homework and found that out beforehand because I'd be really curious to have a deeper conversation
around what are we learning from those higher performing feeder patterns that we are now extending?
so I'm curious if we have thoughts about those but also what additional resources are we plugging in with our lower
performing feeder patterns to help move them up because we know? It's not a difference in
students. It's a difference in the support and the experience that they're getting I would
really love for that conversation so I want to see if you have any thoughts on either of those what we have learned and are extending
everywhere or to what we're doing to bring up the ones that are struggling
the most so I can just say really quickly like we have one
campus that has increased by
26 points percent 26% and dr. Nobles you just want to speak just on two things
that we know that this particular campus did to make that increase that we learned
from conrad. Can we call that campus out? Sure, james madison high school
way to go 26% growth is huge. We'll take it and so that's one
of the campuses that really is intentional about the use
of data and that salesforce dashboard and using that to advise the students working
with those students and also the dashboard they're using and then the adaptive platform
that they're using with the students and so they have implemented those strategies with fidelity and so
we've seen that growth over time so it sounds like in both of those and you can
correct me if I'm wrong are less about the experiences that like the kids aren't
necessarily receiving some different experience what they're getting is actually more intentional conversations
from adults who are using these dashboards, correct? I would say it's the quality
of the implementation of those resources,
right because they're available to all the campuses but I think when the team was talking
to me about madison it was the what you just described that intent like this is what this
student needs and then there's a whole plan around making sure every student. Okay, so then this works better
with this student so we're going to give them access to this and this is when they're going to do it like helping the
student even ensure that the time with that adaptive particularly that adaptive software is part of this
like how do I work this into the school day? How do I work this
into ensuring that there's time after school if they're staying after school? So there was it wasn't a here's
what you have go see if it works or it was it was the
support I think those that's the word you use it is it is the support of the existing
tools. I also think two things I think they've done the team has done this work. We have
to remember. This is lag so I think we're going to see some some leveling up
to trustee minsky's point and to your point I think we're going to see some leveling up trustee
mackey because we have taken some of these observations and dr. Novel says led that work in
with each of these campuses. I think we're going to see some of that I also think both what
trustee minsky and yourself have pointed out the there are opportunities for us
to be more intentional ourselves in how we do the range what is
the highest performing and how do we ensure that we are actually move everybody up?
I don't know that I certainly have to say I have not been that
intentional with our team and saying this is what I think I want to see next so it's an
opportunity for us yeah, so dive. Thank you for that so diving down that I
think I really appreciated the conversation around so if we have 33% of students that are met in
both is our prediction here and there are 22% I think we said that are met in one and not the
other I would love to understand and maybe we don't have this answer yeah,
but this is where I'd love to get this conversation to go is if I'm a student who has met in english but not in math
what looks different in my day than someone who is met in math and not in english
versus someone who is not met in either? Do we have any particular
strategies or different ways that we are plugging in with the students based on their individualized need
this year we did implement some piloting programs and so we
worked with the principals there was a tool we used mastery prep and so we did some
in day school intervention or during the day school intervention and so we targeted
students to your point who were met in one area and not the other and
so if I'm john I'm at an elar then what we did was we work with the principal to bring in
and train teachers do intervention do like a blitz day work with
those students let them know where they were what their needs were and then do targeted
intervention and then testing and so we saw some significant growth
with doing that we did that with approximately six or seven
campuses just as a start to see if it was worth scaling
for next year thank you, I'll be curious to see how that goes and what we do there I
know that part of this is of course we want to make sure kids feel comfortable
with the format there is some kind of blitz and test prep and that will always be the case
for these type of exams don't have don't have to go any further than the lawyers
on this board who studied a lot more for lsat in the days leading up to the lsat than in their
college? I think there's nothing wrong with that but also I know fundamentally we also are
teaching these skills in algebra 2 and some of the others so what work are we doing
to embed and align the work in our actual core courses to this and have we thought about? You know, do we do anything
with like tsi fits best with algebra 2 hence we have our algebra 2 students or anything like that about how
we're embedding these same skills and aligning them within the core courses well,
that also was another strategy and this is really exciting for me because we're seeing so much growth this year
but we did a partner with academic services and so they did embed strategies
for the teachers in english 1 2 & 3 algebra 1 geometry and
algebra 2 for teachers and students so that is real-time
direct instruction support for students during those classes and so there's also
growth there because then at the end of algebra 2 and english 3 and we're able to
assess students as juniors and sophomores now in an ideal world,
we're not there yet, but we're getting there taking the information. Dr neville's just
did the work that academic services did to align curriculum really the next
thing is to get how many students do I have that need
the elar? Which teacher has the highest
performance and how do I make sure that those students just like we started doing at the elementary of using our
highest performing teachers? With our students who needed them the most we need to be able to do that
of course, you're a former high school principal so, you know when I say the master schedule sounds like that's something we
could do and you know that at a high school trustee mackey to do that is far more
complex, but that's the next area so that when you would ask
that question, we'd say not only here's the plan for stephanie but here are the teachers that these students
have and then how we're monitoring that that's incredible if we can go thank
you for that. I mean,
it's exciting to see this growth one more technical question here on the top we're
talking about the year in which we're looking at the data but that is you're
saying it's lagged by a year for the class I'm not sure what class of 2024 is referring to
on this side, but maybe key metric class of 2024 and then so on and so forth
but am I accurately thinking about this to say our 2025 26 estimate is actually the class
of 25 estimate correct. So class of 25 will be the 25 26
accountability year, right? I would just encourage us also,
I'm sure we also even though this year is not done I would love to see when we do this to look
at what we think is happening for class of 2026 knowing full well that we are not
like it's not gonna be right but it'll probably be a minimum because I think you know all
of these kids every single kid on this page is long gone but it'd be really interesting
to see where we're at with the kids currently here because we can they do dr. Nevels and
chief you apollo do do have that they're monitoring that. Yes, sir I would love
to see that on this as well. So if that's possible, but that's just a thought how
do our class of 2026 look that if we're monitoring that do we
have any idea yeah, it's exciting dr. Nevels is your work. You want
to share it? She said okay she right now
we're in the window of testing so we just started the window of like about a week ago and alright
at this point this class is at 38.4 percent met thirty
eight point six or thirty eight point four percent met thirty eight point four percent met
that's amazing. Congratulations. That's still
with a number of months to go all right, well that's ten
minutes so I will yeah, yeah trustee sanders yield just a
few quick questions because a lot's been covered already one
yeah, and we could put this for the tracker I would like to see just how each individual
high school squares up with across all of these domains
that would just be great of course deeply interested in
in my district and I feel like my colleagues probably feel the same so the other is I know it
wasn't the point, but I'm also very interested in and it's been a long time since we've talked about just
graduation rates because they you know that we've been doing pretty good,
but that's a big jump so so what what do we credit to the total graduate number going up
that much? Well, I don't think it's any
one thing I think it's a multi-factor one you have to go back to where these
students were going back to kovat and so there is if you will a certain amount
of students that kind of left the system and then came back to a system so you get a bubble the second one is as we do
better with students, then we may be keeping some students instead of them going, you
know, especially students that start
off with us so there has been a and then thirdly there was a bubble in this grade level so
if you track this group of students there has been there was like a statewide there was
this kind of a larger number and then you have students
particularly their freshman year who are unsuccessful,
that's the area as you all know that we're all so focused on is ensuring because if you don't
have a great freshman year we have we it makes it very very difficult for students
to ever get caught up that we still have a large percentage
of students that we need to continue to support and
improving that this particular number is also indicative of the fact that we were able
to recover them so we might have a larger number of fifth year graduates if you will,
okay yeah but we were able to capture them and so it's a little of this a little
of this and a little of this got it okay, good.
we'll keep the little of all those things going the
the last question I have is is me just getting up to speed
can you give me an example of? What what is
in ibc that wouldn't qualify for outcomes based funding
what's an example of that? So we have like osha 10 which all of our freshmen take and
that is not on the a through f list okay, but that's a certification they take so
what it would not count it's not on the a through f list got anything that's on the a
through f list does count for accountability and for
outcomes based funding and how to in that list is control of the state is there a
potential especially if we have like a number of kids doing it what what could put that
on the state list eventually? So they were on two-year cycle. So that's where businesses get together
and they say hey, we want this on the ibc list currently there's 500 certifications. We're in a five-year cycle
from 25 to 2030 we have version four of this list, but every
year we can get one or two in there as the as ta opens
that up they can make those recommendations what's our agent?
what's I guess dallas isds agency in doing that? Does it have to be
like a ground swell of a bunch of different isds or do we have the opportunity if we see? This is really hidden for us
can we advocate for that? Absolutely we can advocate for it okay and then you said
it's only like one or two a year and then there's a big review at the end
of so they they are now in five-year cycles because before they were changing every
two years got it and they were putting a hundred on taking a hundred off and
that's what was throwing us and you can see where that causes problems because kids are in a four-year plan yeah,
but if you change what we put you on for two years and now you change it now,
that's no longer counting right. Well now what do I do? Yeah, and so they heard quite a
bit of feedback from a few of us I'm not saying it was me and in that process we ended up
then they gave us now what makes more sense which is a five-year review so that that
way we have kids in a path yeah, rather than having
to change mid-cycle. Are we seeing? Just you know doesn't have
to be a scientific assessment, but are we seeing that there's
potentially qualifying ibcs that aren't on the list, but that our kids really are
taken to or we have a number of children that are doing it that
would that we're targeting for addition so we're currently
making sure that students receive an a through f certification, but
they receive multiple they don't just receive one right they'll receive two and three
as certifications come up and we're working with industry partners and they say hey we really want this one we can go
ahead and do it because they already met accountability but then what we can do is we can
say to the state. Hey, this one is regional this is a very good certification. We want to put this on the list and we
can get businesses to advocate as well okay. All right. Got it. I I'm just
deeply curious about that one. So I'll probably pull you aside and
pick your brain, but got a couple no, but thank you. Thank you. Those are my
questions trustees further
questions okay trustees,
you know further questions, thank you all for the presentation trustees
will now turn to agenda item 7a the superintendents report including budget update superintendent thank you
president carry on members of the board our deputy superintendent ed ramos and our
chief of human capital management robert abel or coming up and
we're going to as you know, we'll as we've developed to
this point we still have quite a bit of work to do but as we're building for the
25 26 we'll talk first about the 25 26 give you an overview as well as some
highlights of the budget development for the 2627 school year and
of course then at that point we'll take some questions so and remember that
for the budget, it's a to read so we'll be doing some
discussion today and then it will be back before a board vote in may. So
this particular item you will not be voting on the budget in april this will not be a
vote until the may 9th meeting and with that I'll turn it
over to deputy superintendent ramos good evening president carry on superintendent
elizalde members of the board wanted to go over the budget specifically where we are
with the 25 26 budget and what we are looking at for the 26
27 budget specifically next slide looking
at what we adopted for the current budget. We
adopted a 91 million dollar deficit. And so where are we projecting to end the year?
we are pretty close to where we had projected our local tax collections one point almost
one point forty eight million dollar local tax collections
we have taken a hit with our state revenue that includes
lower than projected enrollment numbers and as well as we took
a hit with our whole harmless revenue estimates we received a
memo from the texas education agency letting us know that
there were some adjustments to the calculations and so in
overall state revenue estimates they came in at 58 million dollars lower than projected
so that has taken a hit with our revenue overall
federal estimates are 17 million below estimates as well we have
done a pretty good job in controlling our overall payroll cost during the year with vacancies as they have occurred
throughout the year as well as with the lower
in enrollment numbers we have also reduced our overall fts in the district and so we have
controlled our overall payroll costs overall as a district and
so we are projecting despite the lower revenue estimates we
are and have made a real good effort with controlling expenditures
and so we still project to come in within our overall projected deficit currently at
ninety point eight million dollars and so we still have three months left to go
in the year and so our goal is still to come in below that ninety point eight million. So
we are still looking at reducing expenditures within april may and june and so if
you go to the next slide every year we project a budget and you can see the past three
years. We projected deficit budgets in the district we
historically do our best to control our expenditures as a district and we have ended the
year better than projected as soon as last year the 2425
school year we did end with a 68 million dollar deficit
compared to the 187 million dollar deficit we projected so
again ending the 25 26 school year we are projecting to end the year with a deficit but not as high as the 91
million dollar deficit so we are there is work to do
with our overall deficit but again, we hope to end the year better than what we
projected despite the challenges that we have faced with lower enrollment and the
whole harmless hit that we have taken from some adjustments
with the calculations as a district we also are committed to continuing to invest
in programs within the district these are programs that we know impact
our students and do bring in some achievements for our students and those are
specifically in the areas of career and technology we spend forty five point four
million in that area early learning twenty three point four million college and career
readiness 21.9 million district school initiative 17.9 million
and high quality tutoring 13 million. So this is part
of our return on investment data quality that we look at as part
of our budgeting process. And so we are continuing to look at these numbers as we look at our budget and some of the
challenges that we face as a school district total
compensation raises being proposed for dallas isd staff for next year total around
fifty six point four million dollars that is for all staff the largest chunk of that is
thirty seven and a half million dollar in teacher compensation ranges with the majority
of that going to be offset by the expansion of the the teacher incentive allotment
teachers will receive the under this proposal will receive the greater of the tei level change
so if they move up a level on ti a change to the comp level of the ti if
they maintain the same level or a two percent of the pay range if those two
don't apply a vast majority of people are going to be in those top two categories it's only a few handful
of people who fall in that bottom category other excellence initiatives are
going to be proposed for 3.8 million dollars in raises that's going to include our edi
our pei and her a pei and for the first time our school counselor excellence initiative
or sci as well dallas isd as part of this proposal. We want
to maintain our commitment to our support staff and we're going to propose
to increase our dallas isd minimum wage from seventeen dollars to
seventeen fifty dollar or seventeen fifty per hour this will help us maintain our
regional lead as far as we can tell we're the highest paying school district on minimum wage also want to
highlight that even though that is our minimum wage a vast majority of our employees are well
above that that is just for entry level for a couple positions so majority
of people are already making above that but we want to go ahead and move that minimum wage up as our commitment to
our support staff and the awesome work they do for us and then pay for the additional compression
for those other hourly employees as well the district is also recommending increase
to our instructional support staff two and three as our teacher salaries have raised
instructional support two and three are generally going to be positions that are either tied
or marketed or banded to those teacher salaries so as teacher salaries have went up
we need to make sure we keep them competitive some of the people that are
in that group are going to be your media specialists your nurses your counselors your lss
p's and your slp's as well those employees in this proposal would get somewhere
around a 3.8 to 4.2 percent increase just depending on where they lie within those
different pay grades and then other staff would receive 2% if they're not
in those specific groups. Next slide this slide contains our
proposed tei compensation levels as you can see each
level increases about $3,000 some keynotes we want to
mention is our proficient one compensation salary floor would be $78,000 so all proficient
one and higher teachers make at least $78,000 as base salary and base salary for our master
teachers would be a hundred and three thousand so a good good
point of note is that if you're a master teacher at a pte and you get that pte stipend you
have a hundred and sixteen thousand dollar base salary as a teacher at a pte campus
prior to any bilingual stipends or esl stipends or special education stipends, etc and
once again we mentioned earlier about the teachers will receive
the greater of the tei change a tei compensation change or a 2% of the salary range as well if
that applies to them on the right side, you'll see our new teacher or proposed new
teacher hiring schedule so we're very excited about that a zero-year teacher coming in. I
would start off at $68,000 and as I typed this presentation up, I realized that's slightly
higher than the twenty six five that I started at so I'm very happy that we've made some
progress since I joined the classroom anyway next slide
this is just some estimates on some various employee groups we usually get questions about so
that just gives the the average salary increase predicted for those those individuals as you
can see all teachers on tei would be around somewhere around a five percent average
if you're progressing one or two you would average around four and a half percent if you don't move
to the proficient one or higher proficient one and higher would average around five point two percent our teacher assistants
they will land somewhere around three point eight percent due
to that compression of that 1750 overall our food service
employees, for example, they would also be impacted if the 1750 per hour move is approved
and that would move them up to around two point seven or two point eight percent raise instead of two percent
for board approved and the same thing applies for our maintenance and transportation
as well and I think another group we mentioned earlier was the counselors and media specialists ls sp's and those
groups and nurses they'd be around three three point eight to four point two percent as
well. Next slide as we continue to dive into our expenditures we wanted to give the board a picture of
what districts are facing statewide the tasbo the texas association of school
business officials recently did a survey for school districts and the districts responding.
this is basically some of the data that they responded with 31%
of districts are concerned about are not concerned about cash flow
over the next three years, which means that almost 69 percent
of districts are looking at their cash flow over the next three years 52%
of districts are anticipating salary increases, but they are funding them
through budget cuts for the next fiscal year 69
almost 70 percent of districts anticipate making budget cuts for the 26 27 school year
similar to what we are looking at as a district and the top three challenges that school
districts are facing in the state deficit budgets lack
of resources declining enrollment and aging facilities. So that sounds
familiar in dallas isd that is what districts are facing throughout the state of texas
next slide so as we look at next year's budget some of the assumptions that we are
looking at we're looking at a taxable value growth of four point seventy four point
five percent projected enrollment of one hundred and thirty two thousand five thirty
three projected tax rate of night nine point nine eight
eight seven three five that is with the assumption of increasing the debt service tax
rate by one penny that also includes a projected tax rate
for next year lower than our current tax rate our recapture
actually that estimate has been
re estimated at 80 million versus 110 that you currently see up there and then the starting teacher salary
$68,000 and minimum hourly rate
of 1750 we are going to begin having community budget meetings throughout the
district they will begin starting if you go
to the next slide may 6 may 7th, may 11th, may 12th and
may 13th the locations will be at the career institute south
career institute north the environmental center our resource center west and we
will also have a virtual meeting will it open it up
to questions?
trustee michigan well, thank you for this report it does look like we have some some big
challenges again this year I wanted to ask a question about the hold harmless provision and
I've looked at that myself and it is unbelievably complicated
and I know the comptroller's office and the tea have changed
those computations on several occasions since the
school funding legislation passed last year and I think
conceptually what the hold harmless?
provision is intended to make districts whole
for the increase in the exemption for senior
citizens right so that if that house did not have the senior
citizen exemption home senior citizen homestead exemption
on it there would be a certain level of taxes paid on it. But because it has that exemption
and the state increased that exemption the districts can't
get less local revenue and the state is supposed to replace
that revenue under this hold harmless legislation so my
question is since that calculation is so
byzantine is are we at a point where we have the final? Calculation of how much the
state is is going to make good make us whole or is this
something where the calculations are still in flux and there's some hope that
maybe we can arrive on a number that was more in line with what everyone's
expectations were so we have a current estimate based
on the revised data assumptions and so right now we are
expecting to receive an estimated 23 million dollars
in whole harmless revenue from the revised calculations
and at one point we were anticipating an estimated 70
million. Okay. Yeah, that's a big so I assume the team is is
working to appeal that whether informally or formally to to see if if that that number can
move right that I said, I I'm not a professional
in that area, but if the calculation just didn't seem seem like it was let's just say
I've made a lot of calls okay over the last 10 days and
we're working on it. Thank you another question, I it may be
too early to know if the compensation changes that are
being proposed here still keep us on the high end of the market do you have a
feel for that at this point? Yes, so what we did is we took
the the compensation team in hcm took all the surrounding markets and they aged their
their current salaries by two to three percent. We do believe that's going to lead us as a
keep us as a market leader though yes, sir. I will say I cut text
from three superintendents they wanted to know they said
there's no way they're going to be able to take our teachers now and I
said, that's correct. You cannot take our teachers yeah, and and then I guess that this
might have to be developed a little bit further when we see what what our reserves actually
turn out to be but what what do
we anticipate? That our reserves will be if we
adopt a budget along the lines of what's suggested here so based
on our current reserves, we will still meet our local fund balance policy of the three months of reserves
and and we still have at least two assuming we do
nothing with our deficit budgets that we project we still have two years that we
can sustain the current deficits that we are projecting
okay, and then I just say this for anybody in the public is listening
to that to us when we go for the bond when we have the
bond election and if it does pass there will be an infusion
or of authority anyway to spend money on the school buildings
but that money cannot be used to spend on workforce and and
so in one sense, we're dealing with the aging facilities through the bond program
but we still are suffering from the operational side where the
state has not made districts whole when you look
at the package of funding for inflation that was that was
very high so we did get an adjustment but in the aggregate
the adjustment did not cover the inflation in our operating expenses
that's correct. Thank you.
that's all trustee form thank you, just a few questions and
so we've adopted a deficit
budget for the last three years,
correct? Yes, and are we proposing another deficit
budget? We will propose a deficit budget for 26 27. Yes
okay, is it going to be anywhere near the deficit budget that we have this year?
yes, it would be close
to an estimated 90 some million
dollars okay, and so throughout the state or the
largest school districts proposing deficit budgets
at the same rate. We are so currently there are I would say
the majority of school districts in the state of texas are proposing deficit budgets based
on the tasbo survey that we recently saw and so the way I
guess that we come up with the additional monies is through the fund balance
to balance it out, correct, correct so how much do we currently have in the fund
balance and how much is assigned and how much is unassigned?
currently in a unassigned fund balance. We have six hundred
and thirty five million in assigned fund balance. I believe it's two hundred and
thirty nine million and on the
teachers robert, so are we keeping the same number
of teachers. I've noticed that when I started out it was about ten thousand. We have
about ninety four hundred. Are we projecting fewer teachers?
yes, ma'am are our teachers and are generated by students so as we went through our spring
budget process the number of teachers would have been reduced for next year versus this year
so, how many do we have this year? I think it's around ninety four hundred maybe a
little bit off and I can get a firm number and how many would we be projecting
in this budget? I would need to go back and pull that day, but I can get that in there
at the tracker for sure could you could you please get that for me and?
I'm on page okay, it's three of the presentation and I'm
looking at the difference in
2022 2023 and then the budget versus actual dollar amounts.
why is why are the dollar amounts actual smaller than the budgeted amount?
so the budgeted amounts is what we at the beginning of the year projected when we
adopted the budget as we go through the year as a district we do our best
to control our expenditures and so when we end the year because we have vacancies and
payroll we try to control our contracted costs our supply
costs we end the year better than what we projected and so
that's where you see our expenditures come in lower than what we had projected
at the beginning of the year now I'm on page four and we
have all of these wonderful programs are they still being funded at
the same amount that we funded them at this year based on this this projection?
so I would have to look at the historical data what this slide is showing is that
we are committed to continuing to invest in these programs as a district
but it would be good to understand what we've been invested previously and if
we're talking about upping the dollar specifically looking at the fact that we'll have fewer
students I can get that information for you. Please. Thank you so much and I'd also
like to have robert that same information on counselors, I
know at one point we did increase the number of counselors that we have we had
so it'll be interesting to see that same number
on counselors okay, I can get that for you. Thank you. Thank
you so much trustee mackey thank you all so much and thank you for your diligent work here if
you can go back to slide three real fast just a few clarifying questions. I mean this I mean
it shows the thoughtfulness for what you all have done this work to budget conservatively
and then show up better than where we've been at each of these by large amounts to
am I right to assume that? Obviously, we're in the 24 25
or 25 26 school year now we don't have the actual for the end of the year but if we had this line for
25 26 it would read that 91 million dollars on the left-hand side and now we're
tracking to get to around 90 million dollars still, right? That's correct. Okay that makes
a lot of sense and can I say something to that? We weren't
tracking we were tracking to be left thank you,
it looked like it was we were tracking to be about 20 or so
before the state changed its rules. That's correct. Got it I'll say just from my
perspective and I appreciate your diligence looking at this and I know we have we have a
fund balance above best practices, which is about that three months it's not a terrible thing
but I would also note that like just from my own personal perspective that money is here to educate kids and we just saw
from their last presentation while we're making great momentum we have more work to do and so I would personally be
in favor of making sure that that money goes to moving the outcomes for kids though just also from
my own personal perspective if that were to start to be projected to drop below three months I would have a
very different take on that but we're not there and so I just want to give you and you dr I think we should be utilizing
that to impact our system in the best way possible that you
all see I'd love to know and if you can go a few more slides to the staff thank you.
again. You all have been committed to this for a long time about making sure that we are a
market pay leader across the board. I'm surprised we didn't see the dan slide
in here directly but as you noted you always hear from certain groups, of
course as this was being presented I heard it from a couple other groups that said what about us is my assumption
that is every employee category reflected in the increases this year.
yeah, the raises will be for all employees. We just picked some and then so I got a couple that I'll ask I see
like counselors on here nurses where would they fall in this today campus support
essential staff. Yeah, and nurses are going to be the campus support, but they're gonna be that
instructional support two and three moves so they'll get somewhere between a three and a half to four point two based upon that
compression okay, and then what about librarians, where do they
fit in this? They're also going to be on the instructional support two and three so they're going
to get the somewhere around the three point eight to four point two for our media specialist you
gotcha and then like physical therapists or whatnot and I'll need to check physical therapists.
gotcha. All right thank you for that. And then if you can go to the teacher slide,
I think it was the next one. I know the legislation changed
quite substantially the state tia previously, I think most
districts were only certifying up to about 33% of teachers but they added a fourth designation and up to 50% of teachers do we
have any sense of how that will impact us and how much more we would likely earn from the tia
allotment based on? Our system yeah, generally I
would say a conservative estimate is is that we're around 28 million dollars a
year now plus or minus it fluctuates a little bit with teacher turnover and moves within the different attendance
zones we're we're anticipating at least a forty four fifty four million dollar total
increase with the new tia allotment so if we go back one slide then
one way to think about is fifty six million thirty seven point five of which is for teachers
roughly some twenty twenty five million is likely from an additional increase
from the state tia as well. Yeah, correct I mean that's a good point too is that the tia
is covering a lot of the raises but remember in dallas isd even though the law
allows us to keep 10% for administrative costs in dallas isd not only do we not
spend any of that money on central staff administrative support, but we actually put in some
of our own money as well for our teacher rates so we go above we go. Well, it looks like if we're getting 25
million more and we're going 37 million. That's a we're
almost doubling it thank you for that. That's super helpful. And then my last question is on if we go sorry go back to
slide four I think it was the different initiatives and dallas isd has been a leader in this for a long time I
assume is there any way and you might not have it now? I would love to see I know we do a return on
investment analysis I'm my assumption as we probably have roi analyses broken out in each of these categories
for different things will the board be able to see that before we consider the budget in may?
we have plans to bring it in may wonderful, thank you all so much and I appreciate this
presentation and if I can say myself one small tracker the physical therapists are also instructional support two and
three so they'll be the three point eight four point two no tracker needed trustee sanders just a couple
of questions and I apologize in advance. I have to leave a
little bit early today, but one quick question
on the high quality tutoring remind me this is the strategy
moving forward this is the work
that's going to be happening in after school or is it going to be happening in school
settings? The high quality it can
actually be both okay, so there's some high quality tutoring that goes on within
the school day and then there's some that's going on, you know
after the school day. So it's a it's a variety okay, great
recapture the recapture change can you remind I know?
it's from 110 to 80 I believe correct. Can you explain just in?
layman's terms that difference so recapture is basically
determined by the estimated enrollment and property value
growth so you plug those two numbers and that determines basically your recapture got it
so basically the recapture difference is in the declining enrollment primarily,
correct? Well, I I want to clarify and
correct me if I'm misunderstanding it's also a
function of the tax compression though because our property values then because we have
homestead exemptions then the values of the properties while they're going up on our rolls
they're going we're getting less credit for those because of the growth because so when
student enrollment goes up yeah, and property values if student enrollment goes
down and property values go up your recapture is going
in the wrong direction. You're gonna have to pay more money so we had over the state
overestimated which is also though now hitting us on the other side
on the hold harmless because then they did not make us whole so we lost dollars on our
property values. So yeah, okay. We're gonna save some on the recapture
but they then took it away from us and then some on the
hold harmless side so there's so many and every single school
district gets affected differently because the school funding laws are so convoluted
it does not hit every but if you're this if x
but y then z but if y but not z then x I mean it is it's really hard for all of us
because we'll sit and go well how come this district this and we're this it's very difficult
for us to even run calculations and models and it's getting harder the which kind
of brings me to my point I'm gonna step on the soapbox for a little bit
I know we don't have throngs of people out here in the crowd to hear but you know kudos and congrats to all
the efficiencies that we're finding all of the systems that we have everything that we're doing but the entire state is
on an unsustainable pathway for education we are in a
world where we keep saying move to texas come to texas be in
texas grow live raise your kids
in texas and most of the large
school districts and a lot of the smaller ones are running deficit budgets right now
for multiple years running and we're gonna you know, we're
gonna do the work we're gonna we're gonna nitpick we're gonna be six sigma certified folks
who will get in there and try and find all of the efficiencies that we can
find but we have got to get some help and we're gonna need to rally the broader troops
the community needs to know about what we're dealing with because while they might not be
here to pay attention to this part if tough decisions have to be made that affect
them and their communities and their families and their kids everybody's gonna be up
in arms, but the conversations and the ire is not going
to be directed to where it needs to be directed and we have got to get people at the state
to help us. I know we are advocates for that, but there's got to be a bigger pie
of folks that are pushing for increased funding and when we
got the update that we got during our training yesterday that there's no appetite
presently to increase education funding
that's insane, that's crazy and we can't stand
for it so you're sitting at the table right now. So
that's why I'm talking to you. But also I'm talking to our broader community we
have got to fix this. This is not a sustainable pathway and they're asking us
to perform miracles and at the same time some of those
same voices that don't want to fund us will then take a swipe at public education saying why
aren't you doing your? Job it's because we're starving
no further questions truth
occurred well, I wouldn't gonna make a speech but now I want to make a speech now I do want
to just follow up on that frustration it's what I've talked about from this ds for a long time now I get
constituents all the time who want to go white. Why do you not have any more money? My property taxes keep going up
and up and up I don't understand and that's because no matter how much your property taxes go up the amount
of money we're allowed to spend per student is set explicitly by the state so if your values
go up, but we're only allowed to spend the same amount. Where's all that extra going?
what's going back to the state who puts less and less dollars into public education every
year and then every time we go to legislative session we have to go beg the legislature to
let us keep the property tax dollars that the public thinks are going to public education
when they're not and it's just extremely frustrating to go have to beg and then they come
and say well, we gave you a several billion dollars last session well, that's that's
several billion dollars of the money you essentially kept us held held from us and
you only gave us part of it back and now we're stuck so anyway,
now I'm I would almost went to the whole meeting without talking now. I got frustrated
so I couldn't help it. Um, okay speaking of frustrations on the
hold harmless adjustment were were we originally provided an
estimate by tea of what home harmless was going to be? Yes, and did we have that
number in hand at the time we created our budget?
yes, and so we adopted a budget with a set of assumptions that the state told us we could rely
on is that correct? Yeah, and the state is now I'm
trying to find another phrase other than pull the rug out from under us
but I'm really struggling to do so the state has now after we have adopted the budget after we have already
told the taxpayers you know, we know we're running into deficits, but we think we'll be able
to clear, you know do our best to be stewards they've changed the rules on us and now our
deficits going to be materially higher to the tune of 50. So we're 50
million dollars or so. Is that correct? That's correct I'm frustrated
and hopefully the state will realize that you can't change the rules on us once again like they have done in the past
and they will correct this and we'll be able to have an end result more in line of what we
were hoping our expectations would be my last question was, you know I know you're you
chief ramos you and your team please don't let my frustration in any way come
across as a reflection on the wonderful work you guys are doing and and and every year
you find ways to be excellent stewards
of our taxpayers dollars and that's why we've been able to dramatically reduce the
deficits that were projected for the last many years I am
just curious, you know, there is at least a little bit more time left in the fiscal year do we anticipate being
able to close even further and toward that that, you know, I'm looking at slide to where
we're projecting a budget
deficit of 90 basically 91 million dollars is that kind of where we think we'll end up or
do we think there's some hope that'll get even smaller over the next few months, you know, our goal is to continue
to reduce that deficit, but I'm gonna answer it with I'm gonna under promise so that I can try
to deliver I I expect this
to be a little better. But again, I we just we don't want this time. We're very in a
very different spot than we were and it's late in the year and so that's my
hesitant the other times I felt comfortable saying hey, we're gonna be able
to do this we're gonna be able to do that. We are essentially, you know halfway through april we have two months left
in this budget year and we just got notification right in the memo in march
before spring break with regard to this change. So we we anticipate doing better
and just really unsure right now what we can do
in two and a half months. We will do something. I just don't know what and am I
correct that this calculation changes? Out disproportionate the right
word, but it's hitting us as a district much harder than it is others right now we cannot find
anyone that is having a percent hit anywhere close
to what we are including houston I'm not a math whiz or
I don't want to show it's on myself I'm pretty good at math, but I have no idea how you can have a calculation
change that hits one district out of the state dramatically worse than everyone else that
that doesn't make sense and hopefully the state will revisit and can make a
correction. So, thank you
trustee turner I want to say a great presentation and I feel
the pain that my colleagues are talking about my main concern
even though we've had these cuts I will still be interested and maybe we'll just have this
in a one-on-one conversation about some things in the budget
that I've taken a look at that I do have some concerns about but I will talk
to the superintendent offline
about that. Thank you trustee lambert well, everybody had such great questions that I
appreciate the diligence with which we're all taking a look at this I also appreciate the diligence with which you
prepared all this information and I find it. I just want
to say having a you know 50 ish million dollar hit from a change in a calculation
from february to now is tough. So thank you all for rolling up your sleeves
digging deep trying to understand and provide clarity so that perhaps we can we can
make it right. So I want to I want to say thank you all
for that. I I also will have a quick question
on the assumption of the four and a half percent rate, where does that come from?
so that comes from looking at our historical growth and actually we just met with the
chief appraiser today and they gave us a confirmation that
that is what they are looking at as far as property value growth. Okay, great thank you.
thank you so much. I look forward to the greater detail on the roi calculations and you
know in may when we take a really roll up our sleeves and take a hard look
at the budget and take our vote so thank you for that. And I also circling back to to trustee mish case point
in my conversations with the community it's noted
that we have two buckets
of money. So we have the bucket by which we're going to the voters and they get to opine
on whether or not they want to fund facilities and then we
have this bucket which is which is designated or dictated by the state legislature. It is not in the hands of voters
it's in the hands of the state and they tell us and those are two very different things as he
mentioned I think that's really important for us to drive home and to continue to educate our just you know
constituents on that the two buckets of money are very separate
facilities is voter decided and operating funds the day-to-day,
you know paying the teachers instructional materials
transportation costs, you know gas, etc. Utilities. All
of that is really we kind of get what we get and appreciate what we get very
much and at the same time hope that we can get more so thank you so much for all the detail.
I look forward to our conversation in may I know it's going to make a good detailed one.
thanks trustee garcia thank you
for the presentation, this is very helpful and understanding something we've
already know that we're on a starving budget. I think was
said before and this sounds like a rhetorical question,
but is there a way to prep for false projections in the future. Is that something that?
chief ramos, maybe you're a magician like that. I mean that the only the best way to prep for it is just
to be conservative with your budgeting but okay, well there are some areas of
the budget that I will address continue to address in my
one-on-ones and also have some questions around different
roles. I don't want to know every role I don't need to know what they all do
but some you know high-level understanding as a newer board member and then I also just
want to I think it'll it's stuck out. I know you mentioned
there's community meetings how how do trustees support these community meetings and how can
we engage? I know that we get so many questions outside
of those meetings, but you had a list of them. I know I saw
environmental center so so doubt yeah, so a participation
at the meetings if you can participate it would be greatly appreciated and is there the
are the dates already out? Yeah so the last slide has the
dates and the time and our communications team has already started pushing those out and
they'll continue to do so and we can make sure that our campuses put that information
out through their own you know campus informations whether
that's their organization's ptas sbdms we'll use all
avenues through chief you at powell as well as you know any any event that we're holding
will make sure that this information is also readily available so anyone can attend
to any of these wonderful. Thank you round two trustee
curry just a real small point well trustee miss kay and
trustee weinberg talked about how you know, this is
about the sort of capital side of the balance sheet as opposed to the operating side but just to shout out to props see just
so people understand what that does it does refinance some debt which would then as part of that shift some
of the debt payments from the operating side
to the other side of the sheet which would free up at least a little bit of operating cash is that
correct? That's correct. I just wanted to make sure that that you know while the legislature
controls the vast majority of the operating budget there's at least a small thing that taxpayers will have the
opportunity to vote on related to additional dollars
in the operating budget just
you ever just quickly in the meetings that we have with the public I'm hoping that
perhaps it you all I always think of this so bear with me if you already have which I
imagine you have but just kind of that basic overview of how school finance works
on both sides and then also, you know kind of I think what we were talking
about yesterday and an opportunity to tell the public also the district's results and
sort of as as part of return on investment
in the overarching sense, right? How the investment that we've
made? Relates to how students are
performing. I just wanted to put that out there. Thank
you jersey for me. I just want to quickly say when we go to the public what?
we struggle with what you're telling us.
so, you know, the public's gonna struggle superintendent I hope there is
a takeaway some kind of questionnaire or something
to give the public an opportunity to interject and
to be able to give their opinion rather than just a presentation. We
need a takeaway
for the public thank you I'll also commit that we will put
what our first draft of our presentation with doing some sort
of takeaway from our public. We will put that in a board update so that all
of you can see what we will be utilizing and that way if
necessary we can certainly make some adjustments. So thank you for raising that and we'll put
that in in a board update that'll probably be me coming with the suggestions trustees
further questions seeing none. Thank you all for the presentation trustees.
we'll now move to agenda items or questions under minutes submitted
for approval. However, the minutes trustees will be posted indeligent
for your review the trustees under statutory items 10a I want to make you aware
at the last regular meeting of the month the board of
trustees before an election of trustees the current president of each local board
of trustees is required to announce the name of each board member who has completed
the required continuing education who has exceeded the required hours
of continuing education anyway, and who is deficient in meeting the required continuing
education as of the anniversary of the date of each board members election
or appointment to the board completing the required continuing education is a basic obligation and expectation
of any sitting board member under the state board of education rule if you have not
completed your required training, please do so before this month's april 23rd
meeting or else I guess
trustees any questions? Um, any other questions
under statutory items 10 no
how about policy updates which is
11 there's only one 11 a anyone
okay okay, what about academics and transformation division
which would be 14 14 a anything
there information technology division 16 a I see trustee foreman, right?
okay okay 16 a I'm just curious
do we have any other contracts for it professional services or
is this the only one? So we have contracts
for instance with power school, there's
professional services baked into that contract this is separate from any other
overarching contract for me, I just like
to know and see how many other professional services contracts
we have. Yes including this one and a dollar amount and the
year we actually let that particular contract. Yes
trustee. All right. Thank you
okay trustees anyone else for 16 a okay, then we'll go to
financial services division
which is 18 a yes
through which one 18 a yes, 18 a 18 a trustee turner yeah, I
have a concern my man concerned
a budget is looking at a you basically
with transportation and they're already at 75%
of their spending already here in february so is that related to fuel costs? Is it related
to overtime? Like can you tell me why?
it's the cost yeah that's actually related to the payroll estimate and if
you look at next year's budget, we have adjusted our
transportation estimate and it's because when we looked at the historical spending
on payroll we were miscalculating our payroll
estimate so that's kind of where we've adjusted the payroll for next year because I
see in the proposal budget that you have overtime for a million dollars, is that the adjustment that you're
making? Yes also, is that one of the tools that you're kind of put in place
to make sure that we don't go over budget when it comes to overtime so overtime actually
this year and last year. We've reduced overtime by 30% so that's one
of the areas that we're looking at with regards to our budget so we've managed to control overtime
in a district wide however in this particular department we are challenged by the fact
that we don't have enough drivers and so our only other option if we don't and we're
thankful I actually want to thank our drivers who do pick up the extra runs because otherwise we would have
to make decisions like the first place we'd have to cut. I mean we could keep
from going overtime we would just have to cut routes so for
instance the first area that costs us the most that's not required would be magnet
transportation but we all know that if we cut magnet transportation that's an
accessibility for many students and so that's one of the areas that we we it
costs you more you're absolutely right cost us more
because we have to pay time and a half when we pay overtime but if we don't have any enough
drivers, then our option is to reduce services and so
while we've done a good job of overtime district wide I definitely want to make sure
that I'm being transparent I don't see us being this
particular department would not be a place that I would be able to cut our overtime now I'm not
saying to cut over time. I just want to make sure that we're managing it properly and also know
like any efficiencies with routes schedule changes
things of that nature. Is that something else that we are exploring? Yes, we actually
reduced our special ed routes last year. Okay. Now we'll talk
about fuel costs, but especially what's going on right now what impact are we
forecasting for a rise in fuel especially going into
the summertime? So fuel we've with regards
to few we kind of priced out our contract and it's a fixed cost so that minimizes our
impact whenever a few costs increase so we buy like futures. Yeah. Okay. Yes
thank you, so it just a quorum
in 18 a yeah, just just real quick so we're telling how many
square miles is dallas isd 340 320 300 and I think it's
it's right under 400 like 380
almost 390 square. It's huge. Yes, ma'am. So and that I asked that question
for a simple reason. I understand the frustration
of trustee turner looking at the numbers, but because it is so large I don't know if
we'll ever have enough bus drivers in you can prop you
probably remember when we took over transportation from
dallas county schools, and we knew at the time that that was going
to be a struggle and I think it continues to be a struggle trying to
manage that particular situation and with all of the options that we have
transporting kids back and forth is really something
that's cumbersome and we also
had cut back on some of our our field trips which hopefully we
will pick up on more of those field trips, but that's also transportation
costs and also drivers, so I think that's a really difficult
area to to work with with such a large district if we were
small, I won't call any small districts names because I get in trouble, but if we were a
smaller district, I think it would be much more manageable
okay, so I saw ramos shaking his head and agreeing with me
trustees anyone else for 18a okay, then anything else under
financial services division which is 18a through 23a okay
okay, and how about operation
services division, which is 25 and 26. Oh, I have 22 did you
skip that or did I forget to say okay, so a 22 a yeah,
okay 22 a trustee warnberg. I just have a quick question. That's the federal grants and it's just I'm curious how when
do we get confirmed that this funding will actually be available to us? How at risk is this amount
of funding? It was a hundred sixteen one that hundred eighteen million 116 point five
million. Yeah, so that is that is the funding that we are expecting to receive so it's
been confirmed. That's that's not at risk in any way. Correct. That is confirmed as far as we know. Yes okay,
no recalculations or that we know that we know of thank you okay, anyone
for operation services division 25 or 26 okay what about
construction services division, which is 28 and 29 I have a
question. Okay. I see turner which one which uh,
which item I just wanted brent to get out of seat that was it. Oh,
really? No, he's there's oh my goodness. All right. He wanted
you to exercise. Okay. Okay. Anyone else construction services division so, you know
supposed to do that's my job. There you go okay, nothing else, okay looks
like you're good right? Okay, then trustees will turn
to agenda item 30 wait, okay. I did get clarification because of the question we did we are
384 square miles and houston is 320 oh, there you go. Trustees
will turn to june. I'm 30 adjournment. The time is 6 34
p.m., the meeting is adjourned.