[0:03] Okay, welcome. This is a regular call meeting for the academic and district affairs committee for the Garland Independent School District, and we have a quorum. So I call the meeting to order at 734.

[0:21] Do we have any public comments, Ms. Hogan? Okay, so we have no public comments, so we'll move on to superintendent's message. Well, good evening. I know that

[0:33] that we got an action-packed agenda on school accountability.

[0:38] The board has been fully apprised of everything that's going to be presented.

[0:42] This is a formality that we need to do for TEA.

[0:46] And while we are steadily improving every year, we'd never rest on our laurels.

[0:52] And we understand that there's work to be done and this year we're going after that A.

[0:56] Okay,

[0:58] you bet. Okay. So, let's go move on to agenda 4A, information item. One, Ms.

[1:10] Joyner?

[1:16] Ms. Downley? This

[1:20] is how fast we are, yes. So sorry, Ms. Joyner.

[1:26] Good

[1:30] evening. Committee Chair Stanley, Board of Trustees, Dr. Lopez.

[1:36] today to have the privilege of sharing an overview of Garland ISD's

[1:41] 2026 A-F school accountability results.

[1:45] This year's results tell an important story,

[1:48] not simply about where we finished but about the direction

[1:50] in which our district is moving.

[1:54] Across multiple measures, we saw improvement in student performance,

[1:57] academic growth, campus ratings, and post-secondary readiness.

[2:01] There is certainly important work ahead,

[2:04] but the breadth of this year's improvement gives us both reason to celebrate and a much

[2:08] clearer picture of what will be required to reach the next level.

[2:13] These results come at a very special year for Garland ISD as we celebrate 125 years of

[2:19] excellence and our recognition as the 2026 HB District of the Year.

[2:26] Before we move into the numbers, I want to ground this conversation and why the results matter.

[2:31] Our accountability results are ultimately a reflection of the work happening every day

[2:36] across our schools.

[2:38] Our values remind us that every student can learn and every student deserves the best.

[2:44] That means accountability is not simply about earning a letter grade.

[2:48] It is about whether more students are learning at higher levels, whether students are growing

[2:53] academically from one year to the next, and whether they graduate prepared for what comes next,

[2:57] And whether that progress reaches that many different groups of the students we serve.

[3:02] That is a lens through which I would like for us to look at tonight's results.

[3:07] So here we have our district level results.

[3:11] Garland ISD earned an overall accountability score of 86, so a B rating.

[3:17] To provide context for those results.

[3:20] This slide compares Garland with other large DFW districts are really serving similarly high percentage of economically disadvantaged students.

[3:30] Among the districts shown with economic disadvantage rates above 70, Garland ISD earned the highest overall accountability score.

[3:38] And then as noted by CBS 11, Garland ISD is also in the top five school districts or I should say it's the top four in Dallas County.

[3:49] So what makes that 86 significant is that it makes the pathway to an A increasingly tangible.

[3:55] The A is increasingly within reach, but the path to it is instructional and not mathematical.

[4:01] So the district scores encouraging, but it's a campus level movement that gives us an even better

[4:05] picture of how broadly that improvement is occurring.

[4:11] This is one of the most important slides in the

[4:12] presentation because it shows what happens, what's happening across our campuses.

[4:17] In 2026, 45 campuses are 70% of our Garland ISD campuses earned either in A or a B rating.

[4:26] Our number of A rated campuses remained at 23.

[4:29] Our number of B rated campuses increased from 16 to 22.

[4:34] Our C rated campuses decreased from 19 to 16.

[4:37] and the number of derated campuses was cut in half from six to three and I still

[4:44] want to highlight we have no F-rated campuses in Garland ISD. In addition we

[4:50] continue to have four of our seven high schools earning an A rating. So what the

[4:55] chart shows you is really the net shift in our district-wide distribution and

[5:01] that distribution has clearly moved upward. So before we move into the domain

[5:06] level results. I want to recognize the campuses that reach the state's highest ratings.

[5:13] 15 of our A rated campuses are elementary campuses. Here, what I want, the campus I want to

[5:20] highlight tonight is Hickman Elementary. Our first year principal, Ms. Finley,

[5:25] helped the campus earn their first A rating in the campus's history of this since 2019.

[5:32] here we have our middle schools and our high schools. So four of our middle

[5:39] schools and four of our high schools are a-rated. That range is important. It

[5:44] demonstrates that high performance is occurring across grade levels and

[5:48] across different instructional models. Here I want to also highlight Hudson

[5:53] Middle School and Web Middle School for earning their first a-rating in the

[5:59] campus's history and specifically I want to call out or I want to highlight

[6:03] web middle school with Ms. Elam also having been a first year principal.

[6:11] So this

[6:11] slide answers one of the most important questions about these this year's

[6:14] results. What actually drove Garland ISD's improvement? The answer is that the

[6:19] gain was not attributable to one isolated measure. As you'll see student

[6:24] achievement increased from 80 to 82. School progress increased from 83 to 86 and

[6:32] closing the gaps remain strong at 85.

[6:36] So as Mr. Glick likes to point out, our accountability system does have a methodology where 70% of our

[6:45] overall score comes from either student achievement or school progress.

[6:51] In this case, school progress within 86 was our best of.

[6:56] And then we add to that the 85 closing the gaps that carry 30% of the weight.

[7:05] So the larger take away is the improvement.

[7:08] Academic improvement, achievement improved, growth improved, relative performance improved,

[7:15] and closing the gaps remains strong.

[7:17] That gives us greater confidence in the direction of the district that we would have the improvement

[7:21] depending upon had we had just one isolated indicator improved.

[7:27] So let's move into the student achievement and what contributed to the two-point gain.

[7:33] Student achievement did increase two points from 80 to 82 in Garland ISD, this domain reflects

[7:39] three significant outcomes, star performance, college career military readiness, and graduation.

[7:45] So, as you'll see, more than 73,500 tests were included in these accountability results.

[7:54] So, even relatively small percentage point improvements reflect movement across a substantial

[8:01] number of students.

[8:03] And when we look more closely at STAR, we continue to see that encouraging movement.

[8:09] On this slide, I do want to point out that I do have a small typo in the science approaches.

[8:13] I have 48% and that should be 78% so my apologies there.

[8:21] So overall 75% of test reach approaches grade level or above, 52% reach meets grade level or above, and 23% reached master's grade level or above, or master's grade level.

[8:33] We deliberately look at all three thresholds because each tells us something different.

[8:38] Approaches tells us whether students are accessing grade level expectations.

[8:43] Meets provide stronger evidence that students are demonstrating the knowledge and skills expected at that grade level.

[8:50] And masters identify students demonstrating the highest level of performance.

[8:55] At the high school level, the picture is considerably stronger, particularly in college and career military readiness.

[9:04] Approximately 4,100 annual graduates of the Class of 2025, so if you'll remember this is

[9:10] a lagging indicator, meaning it's for the Class of 25 and not the Class of 26.

[9:15] About 95% of those graduates earned CCMR indicator.

[9:21] What makes this result particularly encouraging is that students are not reaching readiness

[9:26] through only one pathway.

[9:28] More than 78% demonstrated TSI readiness in both reading and math.

[9:34] More than half earned an industry-based certificate.

[9:39] More than one-third earned course credit and more than 11% earned an associate's degree.

[9:48] So think about the savings for our families that had students that earned those associate's

[9:55] degrees. Those percentages overlap. A student could meet more than one indicator, so it won't

[10:02] make sense to try to add that up to 100%. So what this demonstrates is that we have a variety

[10:10] of pathways available to our students. And that's exactly what we want. College and career

[10:16] readiness should not require every student to follow an identical path. It's our responsibility

[10:22] ability to ensure that they leave Garland ISD with a meaningful evidence and they are prepared

[10:27] for what comes next.

[10:29] And those readiness outcomes are supported by equally strong graduation results.

[10:35] When we move into the graduation outcomes, Garland ISD's 4-year graduation rate was 94.4

[10:42] percent.

[10:43] But if you'll note, the state actually allows for us to consider up to 6 years for graduation

[10:49] rate.

[10:49] So, not every student completes high school on the exact same timeline.

[10:54] If a student needs additional time but ultimately leaves garland ISD with the diploma and a

[10:59] viable path forward, that outcome is important.

[11:03] So now let's turn into the domains that contributed most strongly to our overall accountability score,

[11:09] which is school progress.

[11:11] The state evaluates school progress in two ways.

[11:14] The first is academic growth, whether students made sufficient progress from one year

[11:19] to the next. Our academic growth score increased 4 points from 74 to 78. Our second is relative

[11:28] performance, which considers student achievement in the context of the percentage of economically

[11:33] disadvantaged students served. That score increased 3 points from 83 to 86. So I don't want

[11:41] to, even though the relative performance was the higher of the indicators, I don't want

[11:46] to the academic growth results to get lost in the calculation.

[11:49] A four point increase was the largest movement across all of these measures.

[11:54] And 33 campuses earned academic growth distinction.

[11:59] If we can continue accelerating individual student growth, particularly for students who

[12:04] have not yet reached the grade level performance, that creates that potential for improvement

[12:10] in school progress and student achievement overall.

[12:13] So, the other part of the accountability calculation asks us a different question.

[12:19] Are these outcomes reaching the different student groups that we serve?

[12:23] And that brings us to closing the gaps where Garland ISD maintained a strong score of 85.

[12:30] Closing the gaps is fundamentally about whether district-wide outcomes are being experienced

[12:35] across the different student groups that we serve.

[12:37] The state examines groups including race and ethnicity, economically disadvantaged, special

[12:43] education, English learners and highly mobile students.

[12:47] And then depending on the grade level, you'll see that there is a variation with high school

[12:53] counting graduation rate instead of academic growth and counting CCMR instead of school quality.

[13:00] We are looking at the specific student groups and indicators where our greatest opportunity

[13:05] remain, because ultimately, district-quite success cannot simply mean a stronger average.

[13:11] And while the state has identified this as the closing the gaps domain, as Dr. Lopez

[13:15] says, we're not going to close the gaps, we're going to eliminate them all together.

[13:22] So a final measure of looking at our accountability system is looking at distinction designations.

[13:29] They tell us something different than the overall A through F rating.

[13:32] They recognize campuses for performing competitively when compared with similar campuses across the state.

[13:39] Of Garland ISD 62 eligible campuses, 41 earned at least one designation that's approximately two thirds of our eligible campuses.

[13:49] Nine campuses earned all designations available to them, and 33 campuses earned a post-secondary readiness distinction.

[14:00] So, distinctions help us answer an important question.

[14:03] How do our campuses perform when compared with schools serving similar populations?

[14:08] And for Garland ISD campuses, the answer is they perform very well.

[14:12] And that matters because it moves a conversation beyond whether a campus simply crossed the accountability

[14:17] threshold.

[14:18] It gives us another indicator of competitiveness across the state and another opportunity for

[14:24] us to identify practices that are worth recalculating.

[14:29] So moving forward.

[14:31] So Garland ISC is moving forward, that A rating is increasingly attainable, but we will

[14:36] not get there simply by chasing this four points.

[14:39] The work is about improving the underlying conditions that produce those points.

[14:44] It's about stronger tier one instruction.

[14:47] It's about using data early enough to change outcomes.

[14:50] So we want to recognize our teachers, our principals, our campus teams, district staff, student

[14:55] and families, and community for the work behind these results.

[14:58] but this year results.

[15:00] This has given us something beyond our rating. They have given us a clearly increasingly clear evidence of where we are succeeding and where our greatest opportunities remain and what we must do next. The pathway to the A is clear and that work is ahead of us. So before taking any questions, I do want to point out that all accountability ratings are located on the Texas school or TX schools.gov as well as on our district website as required by statute.

[15:30] So, any questions that I might answer?

[15:34] Thank you very much, Mr. Joiner.

[15:36] Committee, do we have any questions?

[15:39] Mr. Solders?

[15:43] Thank you for that presentation.

[15:46] And I just want to say how proud I am of all of the work that's going in to get us to

[15:52] this point and the improvement that we've seen over the course of a year or over the time

[15:57] that we've been looking at this.

[15:58] You started your presentation, you talked about looking at this from standpoint of instructional versus mathematical.

[16:09] And so looking at the student achievement slide that you had, where you showed the components that went into that domain score.

[16:21] Yes.

[16:25] How much of the overall rating is carried by CCMR, graduation rate, over-star performance?

[16:34] And what does that tell us about where we are instructionally? You talked about some

[16:41] of the opportunities that we have. And so I'm just curious sort of how does that all work together?

[16:46] That's a great question. So one of the things that the state did a few years ago in revising

[16:51] the methodology. As a district level, we used to be scored just like a high school. So our

[16:59] best of, let's say student achievement was part star and then part CCMR and part graduation,

[17:09] right. But as the state analyzed all district level results, they came to the realization that

[17:16] that there were some a rated districts that had DNF campuses.

[17:21] So when that methodology changed, they did so,

[17:24] so that that CCMR wouldn't weigh so heavily on an overall outcome.

[17:30] So to answer your question, star is still proportionately higher,

[17:37] especially when it comes to closing the gap domain.

[17:41] But with the weighting of our high schools,

[17:43] I would say CCMR and graduation combined is probably 20% of our overall district score.

[17:50] It's not as impactful as it used to be.

[17:54] And so where are we more vulnerable and structurally than to make in the adjustments that we need

[18:02] to make in order to boost performance so that we aren't leaving any students behind in terms

[18:10] of where they need to be academically and be unable to perform at this

[18:14] hardly.

[18:14] Great question.

[18:15] So tonight's agenda is actually purposely organized or where I gave you the

[18:19] accountability results and then the next team is going to bring where we are on the

[18:24] instruction side.

[18:25] Okay.

[18:26] So a great question.

[18:27] That's all I have.

[18:29] Okay.

[18:29] Thank you.

[18:30] Mr. Glick.

[18:31] Yeah.

[18:33] So earlier this year, Dr. Lopez talked about putting emphasis on what I call category A student

[18:40] achievement.

[18:40] Yes. Are we there? How do we get higher number? If we're going to end up actually using

[18:47] that category in the mathematics. Great question. So one of our greatest opportunities in

[18:54] Garland ISD is ensuring that not only are we accelerating instruction and outcomes for

[19:02] our lowest performing students, specifically the ones that have struggled to meet grade

[19:07] level expectations over a series of time but also specifically looking at our high achieving

[19:15] students that we've seen regression.

[19:18] So I know that that's one of the levers that we're considering is ensuring like no

[19:23] one can fall behind and then that will also help with the student achievement.

[19:28] So it's tackling like I tell people there's no more bubble kids.

[19:31] We used to way back in the day look at the list of kids that are just on the verge of leveling

[19:37] up to the next level, right? And I tell people all the time, there's no more bubble

[19:41] kids, there are bubbles everywhere. Every student, every student group can move a level.

[19:47] So that's how we're going to get there.

[19:49] And tell us when you visit the different campuses, how you use the numbers to influence their

[19:56] teaching.

[19:57] My favorite part, and we're actually getting ready to start our campus tours, if you will.

[20:04] And it really boils down to something super simple and it's down to the kid, right?

[20:10] We pull up student listings and identify down to each student which students do we have that are regressing?

[20:18] Which students do we have that are right on the verge of leveling up?

[20:22] So there's no secret in the sauce.

[20:24] It's really getting down to each individual kid.

[20:28] Thank you, Mr. Miller.

[20:30] Okay, thank you, Mr. Miller.

[20:33] Yeah, just real quick, on page 11, I think the next page,

[20:37] you talk the industry certifications of 51.6%.

[20:42] The GSD have a particular industry

[20:48] train certification that is more predominant

[20:52] than the others, in other words,

[20:53] a lot of our kids tend to go to one discipline

[20:58] versus another. I'm just kind of wondering how that split is.

[21:02] Great question, and we'll give Ms. Blakey just a moment.

[21:06] I'm sorry, didn't mean that I had to go.

[21:10] She's faster on that.

[21:11] Yes, pretty much.

[21:12] She is walking.

[21:18] Good evening, Board of Trustees and Dr. Lopez.

[21:21] I'm almost as fast as I am when I'm walking.

[21:25] So the question was about industry-based certifications,

[21:28] and if one is more predominant than another.

[21:30] And I would answer that by saying it's really just according to which programs of study our students are involved in so

[21:39] We I mean if you think about our auto-tech program

[21:44] Most of those students get certified so I will say that of the students who test and I'm gonna throw out a percentage

[21:51] That's not I don't have data right in front of me, but it's about 80 to 84% of our students that take an IBC earned their IBC

[22:00] So that's a high percentage.

[22:02] Our teachers are doing a good job instructing them to get ready for those IVCs.

[22:08] As far as our programs of study, business marketing and finance is a big one.

[22:15] A large percentage of our students are enrolled in a course or in a program of study for BMF.

[22:20] And then health science is another, one of our largest.

[22:25] And we are looking to grow some of our ones like construction, architecture, some that we know that the upcoming land surveying, some of the ones that we know when they graduate, they can earn a level wage.

[22:38] So I don't know if that answers your question.

[22:39] Well, yeah, how do you determine, you know, we prepare for the kids every year and you're going to have so many teachers of, you know,

[22:51] accounting, or finance, or carpentry, or plumbing, I mean how do you determine how many

[22:56] kids can go in those groups or those departments, and I just want to make sure we're serving

[23:02] the needs that the kids are interested in.

[23:04] Sure.

[23:04] How do you determine if we're serving the needs that they're interested in?

[23:07] So our students work with their counselor to enroll in a program of study.

[23:13] Once we have those numbers, which starts early, we'll start that for the upcoming year.

[23:20] Some schools will start as early as December, but January will start, students will be doing

[23:24] choice of subject.

[23:26] Also they're choosing that ninth grade year to enter a program of study and we're doing

[23:30] our best to make sure that's the right place for them because we need them to be a computer.

[23:35] And so we can predict based on those personal graduation plans, we can predict what programs

[23:41] of study are going to be more highly enrolled than others and then we plan based on that.

[23:48] And then if we have to adjust, I mean there are times that I'll go to HR and say I need

[23:53] to switch an allocation from business marketing finance to health science because we have more

[23:59] enrolled in that program of study than we anticipated but that's rare because we can predict

[24:03] that quite a few years out because they do fill out their personal graduation plans and

[24:07] And then we just update them every year based on their needs and their teenagers.

[24:13] So they do change their mind, but we're advising in a way now that we hope they understand

[24:18] what they're signing up for.

[24:20] And then that seventh grade career explorations, college and career explorations class helps

[24:26] them understand our programs of study that we offer in Garland and they really do a deep dive

[24:30] into that.

[24:31] So they understand what the careers that are attached to those programs of study look like.

[24:36] What the opportunities are. So within, we have a lot of floor space and equipment and capital tied up in like our culinary.

[24:44] I'm assuming that program is still as robust as when we started.

[24:48] It is. In fact, that's one that's, it's definitely full.

[24:54] Now, looking at post-secondary opportunities, culinary is not at the highest level for livable wage after graduation.

[25:02] That would be my next question, you know, how efficient is all that effort.

[25:09] So we have done in the last two years done a lot of research, worked with the data from

[25:16] Bureau of Labor Statistics, worked with an organization called, just slipped my mind,

[25:23] I just talked to them today, anyway, I can't think of the name of it.

[25:29] Just an organization.

[25:30] an organization that focuses on workforce development, and I just met with them today.

[25:36] And so we're looking at the data, we're looking at what livable wage is, and then we're

[25:42] looking at student interest as well.

[25:44] So eventually, will we phase out some programs that are not producing the livable wage that

[25:50] others are?

[25:51] Yes, we'll have to because we're opening our new ones at the GRCTC, and we're preparing

[25:56] for those students at the campus level at the Comprehensive Campus level, for their

[26:01] level one course and they'll move on to the GRCTC for the level 23 and 4.

[26:06] So we'll have to phase out some to implement those over time once we graduate them out

[26:14] of that program.

[26:15] Sure.

[26:15] I would be interested in any analysis that went along that line.

[26:19] And thank you.

[26:20] The last question I had was, we talked about, I think this is for Veronica, we talked about our red footnote about 4-5 and 6-year graduation rates all remaining above 94% with the 6-year rate getting to 96.3% and this is no question about how do you know, how do you track that?

[26:39] How do you know when they graduate or how do you know that you're capturing all of them?

[26:42] Great question.

[26:44] So when a student enters high school, they're assigned a cohort.

[26:48] And so the state, and one of the reasons why this is also a lagging indicator, is because

[26:54] there's a lot of reconciling that goes on.

[26:57] So even students that didn't enter high school in Garland ISD, the state is able to match

[27:04] them to their, their originating cohort.

[27:08] So it's a lot of back in matching.

[27:10] So the data come back to you from the state?

[27:13] Yes, and as a matter of fact, graduation, I tell our high schools all the time.

[27:17] It's one of the hardest ones for me to replicate, because we have so many students that come in that didn't start 9th grade in garland ISD.

[27:28] So I can, this is the one that it pains me to say that I don't ever like to publish my projected graduation rate.

[27:37] because it's so volatile because of the way the kids go in and out.

[27:42] Sure. Thank you so much.

[27:44] Of course. Do we have any other questions?

[27:49] Wow. Well, thank you very much.

[27:52] I did have one question.

[27:57] So when we talk about the personal graduation plans,

[28:01] what's our percentage of our high schoolers

[28:04] that really truly have a personal graduation plan?

[28:08] So,

[28:16] in the absence of Dr. Gilmore, I'll answer that question.

[28:19] So, we have, I mean, I want to say 100% but right at 100% of our students have a personal

[28:27] graduation plan.

[28:28] It's required that we enter those, that we have the plans and that we document those

[28:33] plans in our system.

[28:35] Just ninth graders or is that they start that at the end, they create it in eighth grade

[28:42] and then update it every year, 9th, 10th, 11th with their counselor.

[28:48] Interesting.

[28:48] Okay. Okay, thank you.

[28:51] All right, you're welcome.

[28:54] So I think that covers it.

[28:55] Thank you so much.

[28:57] Of course, and then I will hand out,

[28:59] just in your folder, a couple of addendum documents

[29:01] that didn't make it into your packet,

[29:03] specifically to call out the campus listings and the ratings.

[29:07] And I know that you guys have already received that

[29:09] through Board Insights or through Dr. Lopez

[29:11] in some way, shape, or form.

[29:12] but I just wanted to formalize it and put it in your hands as well.

[29:19] And while she's doing that, we'll go ahead and get on deck for number two, District

[29:26] Scorecard Review, and it looks like it's going to be Dr. Mr. Brumon for, are you guys going

[29:33] to tag team all three of you or?

[29:35] Tag, tag and tag, all three of us this evening.

[29:38] Okay, you tag away, thank you.

[29:41] All right, committee chair Stanley, members of the board and Dr. Lopez, good evening.

[29:46] My name is Colman Brewman, I'm the Executive Director of Secondary Academics.

[29:51] Tonight we'll review our GISD District Scorecard with an update on our board goals and student

[29:57] management measures.

[29:58] Before we get into the data

[30:00] So I want to begin with one indicator that reflects the hard work of our students, teachers, leaders, and staff across the district. And it's on our front slide. We are the 2026 HEB district of the year. That recognition does not replace our scorecard measures, but it does show the work that's happening across garland ISD that's being recognized beyond our district. Tonight we celebrate the progress and also name where the work continues. Also as a reminder, as we're talking about

[30:29] the work ahead, we'll be back in October with our official district improvement plan and

[30:34] campus improvement plan for lots of the details, but I'll give a little clue in as we're

[30:39] talking tonight.

[30:42] So first we should celebrate the growth, our overall accountability rating that Ms. Joyner

[30:46] just reviewed moved from a 81 in 2024 to 86 in 2026.

[30:51] Our district goals are what organizes that work.

[30:54] So the first four goals are goals around third grade reading a math and sixth grade reading

[31:00] a math, goal number five with our unmatched pathways for CCMR with our embedded TSI met

[31:06] by exam, Submetric, and then unmatched excellence with eliminating D and F campuses by increasing

[31:13] the support and accountability.

[31:16] This here is our goal summary, which is our roadmap and it reminds us where we started in 2024

[31:21] with our district goals and the targets we established for 2026.

[31:26] I'm going to go ahead and let the cat out of the bag we met or exceeded all of our

[31:31] 2026 overall targets for every single goal we're reviewing tonight

[31:40] and we're

[31:41] district of the year just to put that in there for everybody. So but meeting an

[31:46] interim target is not the finish line. Dr. Joyner kind of brought or sorry

[31:50] Miss Joyner brought that up regarding the instructional pathway our work really

[31:54] never ends but we're proud of the progress and we're just relentless about what's

[31:59] next. So in goal number one starting with third grade reading we exceeded our

[32:05] 2026 goal by reaching 51 percent at meets grade level. Looking beneath the

[32:11] overall number four of the six measures on the slide met or exceeded their

[32:16] targets. That is meaningful progress. The remaining measures show where we need

[32:20] to gather the consistency. We exceeded the goal but consistency for all students

[32:26] remains our work.

[32:28] Moving forward, we've incorporated the design from models that you've seen before like gold

[32:32] into our core curriculum through explicit resources and embedded scaffolds.

[32:37] The opportunity is to take what worked in the targeted support and make it increasingly

[32:42] part of the student's daily experience.

[32:46] Third grade math is the one that Mr. Ruiz is probably going to brag on me for because this

[32:52] one has the pattern that we want to replicate across the whole system.

[32:55] We reached 49% meets grade level exceeding the overall district goal but more importantly all six

[33:03] measures on this slide met or exceeded the 2026 targets. This is the model for overall

[33:08] improvement accompanied by success for every student group. As we look ahead we want to build from

[33:16] that pattern. When curriculum instruction and expectations are aligned we create stronger

[33:22] conditions for success across all student groups.

[33:26] This is why we are sharpening our focus across the system through our common instructional

[33:30] drivers, which we've told you guys about before and board inside.

[33:34] The goal is greater coherence across the system so that the pattern of success becomes increasingly

[33:40] consistent.

[33:42] Then on to the transition grade, so sixth grade reading.

[33:46] We also exceeded our 2026 goal reaching that 53% and similar to goal one, we see strong overall progress across multiple student groups.

[33:57] At the same time, the disaggregated results show us where the system needs to become stronger.

[34:02] We exceeded the goal, but supporting students in the middle school transition remains the work.

[34:09] We are building our secondary curriculum upon the elementary foundations,

[34:13] Prioritizing grade level instruction paired with targeted opportunities for

[34:17] reteach and extension. The transition from 5th to 6th grade should build on

[34:22] learning, not reset it.

[34:28] 6th grade math tells a different but important part of the

[34:32] story. We met our 2026 goal at 36% up 10 points from our 2024 baseline. All measures

[34:40] teachers improved from 2024, but with a 2030 target of 56 percent, the gap is clear.

[34:47] This is a story of growth that now needs to accelerate.

[34:51] When every measure is not at the level we need, our response simply cannot be more instruction.

[34:58] We currently are redefining our PLC models to provide teachers and teams with structures

[35:04] for planning, more importantly examining student data and work, and determining the appropriate

[35:10] instructional response. Our responsibility is to use evidence of learning to make that

[35:15] improvement faster and more consistent like my friends over in third grade math.

[35:22] So now on to gold five, which you guys had a lot of questions in the last presentation,

[35:27] but this is about our unmatched pathways in CCMR. And our pathway results give us another

[35:32] reason to celebrate. Our preliminary CCMR rate is at 97%, exceeding our target of 96%.

[35:40] At the same time, our TSI met by exam rate reached 45%, which is an 11 point increase

[35:47] from our 2024 baseline, and above our 2026 target, which was 43%. We must maintain our CCMR

[35:56] our goal while achieving our long-term 2030 TSI target at 60%, which means every student

[36:03] will have a clear defined pathway to college, careers, and graduation.

[36:09] The continued goal is simple, create the pathway earlier, know where every student is,

[36:16] and respond when a student needs that additional support.

[36:19] Then moving on to goal six, across these five goals, the work ahead is not about adding

[36:27] more, it's about taking what is working and building better coherence across the system.

[36:32] We exceeded every board goal presented here, and with that, we'll move in the goal six with unmatched excellence.

[36:44] Good evening Chairperson Stanley, members of the board, Dr. Lopez.

[36:48] My name is Michael Arriola and the Assistant Superintendent for Leadership and I'm here to present

[36:53] with board goal six are unmatched excellence so on this slide we'd like to

[36:57] point out that in 2024 we were starting with all over a quarter of our

[37:01] campuses at either a D or an F rating and we are excited to announce and see

[37:07] that our campuses took last year with all the distractions all the things that

[37:11] we were talking about here last year at this time when we said we were going to

[37:15] do less with less they took that as a challenge and they decided to go out there

[37:19] our students, our teachers, and they exceeded expectations, and we are down to 3D campuses.

[37:26] Not only that, but we have increased the number of A and B campuses by five.

[37:33] We've lowered the number of D rated campuses, and again, brought that number down to 0Fs.

[37:41] Middle school is especially an area to celebrate because of those D campuses and those F campuses.

[37:48] We have eliminated the 4F campuses from 2024, and we're continuing to push our campuses up towards those A and B areas.

[37:56] I also want to highlight our elementary schools, our elementary EDLs, Dr. Curtis, Kim Marsh, Toby Schmidt.

[38:02] They moved our elementary schools significantly, adding those 2A campuses, moving those campuses from the C's to B's and getting down to 1D campus.

[38:14] This slide reflects the efforts that have been made through consolidation.

[38:18] As you see the graphs we started off with 8 F's and 12 D's.

[38:23] We've consolidated campuses and increased performance at all of those campuses.

[38:33] Here were our 2526 targeted campuses.

[38:37] And so as we can see all of our elementaries moved from a D rating to either AC or a B rating

[38:44] with some great jumps at Pearson and Stedom.

[38:47] As a reminder, Stedom was victim to the 3D rule

[38:52] that led to that D last year.

[38:55] This year they increased their performance

[38:57] and were able to get to the B-range.

[38:59] This year unfortunately, bussy fell victim to the 3D rule.

[39:04] Without that, they would have made it to the C-rating,

[39:07] but here we are and we have work to do.

[39:12] So, as we see our 2627 radings, our targeted campuses include Rowlett Elementary, Busy Middle School, and Shreddy Middle School.

[39:22] And so, not all letter grade changes are built the same.

[39:26] So, here we see on the left some great celebrations.

[39:29] Campuses moving up a grade level at elementary that were highlighting a few here.

[39:34] Back made a huge gain of five points moving into a B-rated campus.

[39:38] and then highlighting the great work done at Pearson Stadium and Stevens increasing double digits

[39:45] highlighted by Pearson's 20 point gain.

[39:49] On the right, we see that one point can make a significant difference.

[39:53] So Bradfield falling one point dropped them from an A to a B,

[39:58] Armstrong two points to a B,

[40:00] and then Doherty with a more significant drop as well as Rowlett

[40:04] at looking at how we can increase their achievement

[40:07] in that domain three rating.

[40:10] At the secondary level, we saw great gains at Hudson,

[40:14] Liles, Sellers, and Webb,

[40:16] Webb making the jump to the A rating as well as Hudson

[40:19] with Liles jumping nine points all the way up to an 84

[40:23] from a 75th.

[40:26] Here we see again a campus at Jackson Technology Center,

[40:29] dropping one point, unfortunately dropping them to a B,

[40:32] and then Obanion falling from an 80 to a 76.

[40:42] So with that work, we know that there's a lot of work to be done.

[40:46] We have a lot to celebrate, but our goal is to learn from the campuses that did not get

[40:51] to the rating that we wanted them to be, and to make sure that we target our efforts to

[40:55] ensure that next year we're here as an a-rated district with zero data-affirated campuses.

[41:01] Are there any questions?

[41:02] questions.

[41:05] Committee, any questions? Mr. Glick. Thank you. So when we were talking about

[41:14] setting up these six goals, one of the ones I thought was most important was goal four,

[41:22] which was six grade math. So what

[41:30] do we, what do you anticipate that major changes will

[41:33] be. When we talked about it, we felt there was no continuity when we looked at the scores

[41:38] for fifth grade math, which were usually very, very good, then it's an incredible decline

[41:43] to sixth grade. It's close. It's getting better, but if you look at our target, I'm wondering

[41:49] if that's even reachable in four years. So what steps are we taking? What changes from

[41:55] what we've seen last year? What are we expecting to do this year?

[41:58] Yes, sir. So I definitely want to celebrate the work a little bit because of that five

[42:03] step gain that we've done for the last two years is really a hallmark of what we're working

[42:07] on.

[42:08] When we step back two years, we made a bold move with our curriculum design.

[42:13] And we did an explicit approach with a partnership.

[42:16] We did a presentation with you guys for readiness that go.

[42:20] And so it takes a very deliberate approach where the students get a very clear model.

[42:24] They get guided practice.

[42:25] They get a independent practice and then some type of mastery that gets tracked very closely.

[42:31] And so now we're in that second year, we're seeing that develop the consistency across all campuses and what we're working on this year is twofold.

[42:40] It's actually two that are brought in here. I'll kind of sandwich two things together.

[42:45] First off, when we're looking at that final mastery thing, we've got to get better in our learning communities to make sure that teachers take the time to analyze that student work and really adjust their instruction to make sure that they do the right thing the next day, whether it's in the warm-up or the next instructional move whatever they do.

[43:01] they decide. And then second, across all systems, this is something we borrowed from Gold

[43:08] and the implementation there is that making sure that all curriculum has a very clear

[43:13] re-teach available and locked and loaded and ready and also an extension that's locked

[43:18] and loaded to address our needs with meets and master students. So that way teachers aren't

[43:23] seeing a student fail at it and then go, okay, what do I do? Do I just say the same question

[43:29] Again, no, absolutely not.

[43:30] We've got something ready for you to address that need with new material.

[43:34] So it's kind of a stair steps from, let me shorten it and paraphrase it, explicit instruction, direct teach with that mastery.

[43:43] And then this year is the reteach and the extension that we're learning from our peers and elementary.

[43:47] I want to put an end to that, Mr. Glick.

[43:50] One of the things we're a district with 40% second language learners in our district.

[43:57] That's a very high number, right?

[43:59] For at every 10.

[44:01] We have to re-evaluate our plan.

[44:04] At one time, the late exit program was revolutionary, right?

[44:09] And it really did a great job of preparing kids

[44:12] have strong foundation, especially in the English language.

[44:17] But now the way the testing is done, it's proving to be a hindrance.

[44:21] And we have to evaluate how that program looks.

[44:23] We may have to move into a more aggressive early exit model.

[44:29] So then that way they have more foundational support going into these tests.

[44:34] Sixth grade is the first year that they really get hit with a lot of critical thinking skills.

[44:39] And with limited language development in English, it really hurts them.

[44:44] And we're seeing that. You could see it in the reading scores, and you could see it in the math scores.

[44:48] And so what we have to do is really evaluate that bilingual program to ensure that it is aligning with the success of these expectations.

[45:06] We had also talked about grader collaboration with the fifth grade general ed teachers and the sixth grade math teachers. Is that occurring? Is that been successful? Yes, sir. It's dubbed our student success team. And so to give you an example, Tracy Vickery, our coordinator for fifth grade math and our Liz Johnson, our second grade, not second grade secondary.

[45:29] coordinator, they've grabbed up a few sets of teachers and they go watch fifth grade

[45:34] instruction and go watch sixth grade instruction and make sure we can track those curricular

[45:37] impacts across the system. I'm not going to be able to name the exact one. They brought

[45:42] it to me though. The example was like we teach it this way and fifth and I can't believe

[45:47] they're expected to do this in sixth. The match what Dr. Lopez has said about the extended

[45:52] rigor. There's things we've got to push down that the teaks may not catch that we need

[45:57] to catch as the professionals.

[45:59] Thank you.

[46:00] Thank you.

[46:02] Mr. Beach?

[46:04] Yes.

[46:05] Mr. Bremen, I want to kind of piggyback off of what Mr. Glick just said about giving the

[46:10] support to the 5th grade teachers in the jump that those students are making from going

[46:16] in a confined classroom to moving from class to class, which I saw a big difference there

[46:23] of students dropping in the 6th grade to all curriculum areas because of that.

[46:27] But I'm just curious of how do we connect that with the sixth grade because I know that

[46:34] in the fifth grade I don't know what the time factor is that they are used or is used in

[46:40] the classroom to teach the reading and the mathematics to help them and what kind of

[46:47] teachers are we giving them to catch them up to speed with what's going on in the sixth

[46:52] great because that's a big jump you know and I see that I saw that happening many many times so I'm just

[46:58] curious if you have an answer for that. I do and you're going to give away my district improvement

[47:02] plan presentations so I guess I got to be a little reserved but so there's two places I can name

[47:09] specific examples. If I talk about sixth grade RLA where we want to make sure we don't lose the literacy

[47:14] the instruction coming out of 5th to 6th grade, Dr. Oryola and I.

[47:23] We made a decision together that we went ahead and blocked all of those courses together

[47:27] so that way we maintain the instructional minutes within the same teacher and set

[47:32] a class period so that way we'd remove that component.

[47:34] So if it's, let's say it's 100 minutes in reading in 5th grade, we're at 90 with the same

[47:41] teacher with a re-teach and with an extension.

[47:44] At math it gets a little trickier because of the variability of the schedules.

[47:47] And so, if you talk about our campuses, I believe we have five that are blocked.

[47:52] But let's talk specifically about bussy and trade-easants that are listed on the screen.

[47:56] They also have blocked their reading, they're, sorry, they're math just like they're reading.

[48:02] And so that way we have the time afforded to respond in the moment.

[48:06] And when they're not mastering the curriculum.

[48:07] And so, again, that transition feels very much the same like we do with the time in elementary.

[48:14] Well, I know that with 47 elementary campuses, it makes it extremely tough when you're talking about that many fifth grade teachers.

[48:22] And I'm sure that some of them are not expertise in teaching mathematics.

[48:26] So I'm just wondering how we are intervening with those individuals to try to help them bring up the speed because that's got to be extremely tough.

[48:35] I think we as a board, we might need to look at another goal there as far as on the 5th grade level or something to help that

[48:44] disc, you know, that percentage jump because, you know, when you're jumping from 47 campuses to 12 and they're getting

[48:54] they're getting a full hour and a half probably in the middle school level compared to another and probably not getting

[49:00] that at the elementary level.

[49:02] Yes, sir.

[49:02] And I may invite my peer up to talk a little bit about fifth grade gold because there's

[49:07] ten campuses receiving a deliberate model that's helping with that transition, but Mr.

[49:14] Ruiz.

[49:17] Good evening, President Stanley, Board of Trustees, Superintendent Dr. Lopez.

[49:21] To answer your question, there are multiple considerations that are taken into account.

[49:26] That transition is tricky nationwide, is not a garland ISD issue, it's an issue across the nation.

[49:32] Some of the measures that have ever been taken place is you'll see an increase in both

[49:40] departmentalized, which means partner teachers, or three way split teachers in fifth grade,

[49:44] where students are going from their reading teacher, reading social studies to their math teacher to their science teacher.

[49:51] And they're moving around so that they get the experience kind of like a soft launch into that

[49:56] That seven period day that they're going to experience at the middle school level.

[49:59] The other thing that we're encountering is by creating parallels between the elementary systems and structures that we're building in.

[50:08] Where the students at the gold campuses have 50 minutes of instruction,

[50:12] take an assessment, some transition to a team center, some stay for a reteach.

[50:17] That movement also creates some familiarity for the students.

[50:21] And they're going to see some of that also at the middle school level as we continue to elevate that.

[50:27] So definitely considerations that are being taken into account to make sure that we're minimizing kind of the trauma of that transition into a new bigger building.

[50:42] Mr. Selders?

[50:45] Yes, thank you for that presentation.

[50:47] And lots to celebrate, I think, as I was going through the data and looking at everything,

[50:55] there were a lot of pleasant surprises in terms of improvements that happened at certain campuses.

[51:01] But then there are also some surprising changes that happen at campuses that had historically done very well.

[51:07] So I'm just curious with risk factors and tear one instruction and

[51:13] data to make adjustments, you know, to whatever practices are having on campuses.

[51:19] What surprised you the most about the robustness of certain systems that you have on some campuses that will allow you to make these significant leaps?

[51:28] And then what frailties existed on other campuses where they took the step back or declined, and then what changes do we make to address that?

[51:37] that. That's an excellent question. Thank you. Looking at some of our campuses without getting

[51:43] into the specifics at each one, I can tell you that looking at our campuses here that

[51:48] made significant growth, especially at the secondary, it was about doing the fundamentals

[51:55] better than everybody else. It was really making sure that teachers are planning, that we're

[51:59] focusing on reading and math. So it allows double-blocking reading and math for every student

[52:08] We've learned from that, we're transitioning that over to Busy and Shreya.

[52:11] At the elementary, we saw systems that are gold is an excellent example, where teachers

[52:17] have a streamlined curriculum, where the scaffolds are built in, so I know if a student doesn't

[52:24] do well, I don't have to create another activity, it's right there.

[52:28] If the students do really well, I don't have to create this extension activity to challenge

[52:33] them I have it right there and I have a setting for them to go into. So now with our sixth grade

[52:38] curriculum we have the same thing. So all of our teachers are getting that curriculum streamlined

[52:45] with the connection to how they learned it in fifth grade thanks to that student success team.

[52:50] And now every sixth grade teacher for English and for math has both an activity for students who are

[52:56] still in that learner stage they didn't get it from the first time and then our students who are

[53:02] I know you don't have a crystal ball, I'm just curious, do you expect that that will help stabilize the performance over time and help the trajectory to move in the direction that we hope, or want it to move, or are we still trying to tinker with things and figure out what makes sense at these certain campuses that we have some of this volatility?

[53:25] I absolutely will help, and I think that what we have learned, like we talked about, a quote that I just heard was that the best indicator of success is well-managed failure.

[53:36] And so when we look back at some of our campuses that have been on the roller coaster, we look at some of our campuses that had significant drops, it's really looking at what were the factors that we may have missed.

[53:46] And so with Ms. Marsh and Dr. Prala started the prioritization, looking at the risk load factors.

[53:53] Now we can highlight those areas that we saw a significant change in.

[53:59] An example may be a campus who now had a sudden increase of 5% special education students.

[54:07] Or an increase in our EB students that previously, unless the principal was just really on it.

[54:16] We would have missed, but now due to the systems that we have in place with our risk load,

[54:21] it's going to have a bright arrow right there next to it.

[54:25] And so that's going to trigger the support from all of our departments and understanding

[54:29] that even if that campus was previously an A or a B, we're working with an entirely different

[54:35] population now, or just like even with our new teachers.

[54:39] So a campus that may have been an A, but now has a larger number of non-certified teachers.

[54:45] Well, we have to develop a plan to support those non-certified teachers that's beyond

[54:50] just coaching.

[54:51] And so, Dr. Pral is an academics and our team.

[54:55] Now we're looking at how can we help them plan, how can we video some of our best teachers

[54:59] at our other schools, get that to them, ask for the lesson that they're going to teach

[55:04] the next day, and then make sure that we're there to support them as they implement it.

[55:08] How, how nimble are we able to make those adjustments?

[55:15] I mean, you talked earlier about coming back to the fundamentals.

[55:18] You know, I think about blocking and tackling, right?

[55:21] Everybody could do that very, very well.

[55:23] You know, that will probably alleviate a lot of some of the challenges that we see.

[55:28] But when you recognize that there's a situation where it might not be exactly where we would like for it to be,

[55:34] regardless of what the campus is and, you know, as things shift, how nimble is our system to allow us to adjust so that by the end of the year, we've kind of got back and right size and course corrected so that we can be where we would like to be or anticipate it.

[55:52] We, honestly, we have less people at Central Office, which is not a bad thing, it's not a good thing, but it is a thing.

[56:02] And so we have less people that are able to go out and support a large number of campuses.

[56:09] So we have to get better at targeting the support, or we have to get better at creating systems that we can add in more campuses without adding the manpower that we need.

[56:22] So with our curriculum, I think that it's at a position, I did walks this morning at bussy and we were able to see

[56:28] just the power and the difference from the curriculum from last year to this year.

[56:33] It's created an opportunity for our instructional coaches to be able to do better coaching.

[56:39] It's created an opportunity for our system principles to be in classrooms and look at the curriculum and be able to say

[56:47] if you had followed this step, you would not have had that issue.

[56:52] which is a great thing to have.

[56:54] I think we have much better tools, even though we have less people.

[56:57] Our system is stronger than it's ever been.

[57:00] I know that principals are play a huge role in making this kind of go off really, really well.

[57:08] We just had a situation where we have a huge number of changes in principals.

[57:12] I don't know all of their backgrounds, but I'm just curious to know that with the changes that we made,

[57:18] particularly around elementary and middle school, do we have a support mechanism in place for those principles now that will kind of help give them the support in guidance now early in the school year versus having to wait until you know towards the end of this semester or maybe first part of the next school year.

[57:38] Yes, and this is where I get to brag on my leadership development team, Dr. Wolfkill,

[57:43] Dr. Wilson, Ms. Goth, our first-year principal academy.

[57:47] This group of principals has been through almost all of our leadership programs and almost

[57:53] all of them together.

[57:54] And so it is an incredibly tight group, which has its benefits because that creates a support

[58:00] network.

[58:01] But every single one of them was brought in internally.

[58:04] And so they all have an outstanding principle that they can reach out to who's a mentor.

[58:11] They've all been assigned a mentor as well.

[58:14] So they are being flooded with support, with mentorship, but then also with a much better curriculum.

[58:22] And then also when we do target our support, we are targeting those first year principles that we know are some of our more delicate campuses.

[58:31] You didn't say this but what I'm hearing is that we're going to blow the 27 targets out of the water.

[58:37] Yeah.

[58:39] It won't be possible.

[58:40] It won't be possible, right?

[58:43] Thank you.

[58:43] That's all my questions, sir.

[58:44] Thank you.

[58:45] Mr. Glick?

[58:46] Yeah, thank you.

[58:47] So, we have a lot to celebrate and I think we certainly should be celebrating all the successes

[58:52] you've pointed out.

[58:53] Absolutely.

[58:54] So, with the changes that you're making, with the campuses that have gone down a grade,

[59:00] let's say.

[59:01] And you've mentioned several of them.

[59:04] How do you measure them?

[59:05] Is it CBAs, is it I ready?

[59:08] Do we have to wait until next July to find out if they're successful?

[59:13] Is there some path along the way where you'll come back to us and say, well, we thought

[59:17] that might work, but it does it or we know this is working and we expect it will.

[59:21] Is that including Ms. Joyner and HUD testing?

[59:24] Just how does the formula work?

[59:26] So you'll see some very familiar items.

[59:29] The CBA is two or three times a year.

[59:32] We still do star in our own as we're preparing for SST

[59:34] as we're forecasting for school year 28.

[59:38] But this year we've taken a very concrete approach

[59:41] with our checkpoints, our curriculum checkpoints

[59:43] that we've designed every three weeks.

[59:45] And so we're making sure that what we test

[59:48] has been on that mastery check that I mentioned earlier

[59:51] like in sixth grade that it was explicitly talked

[59:54] during the three weeks beforehand and so we're using that data to start to try

[1:00:00] Like, where is the kid every single time? And then with our, we have an academic systems coordinator

[1:00:06] that has developed goal sheets for grades three through eight. And on those goal sheets,

[1:00:12] they'll be uploaded for the teacher by roster. And they will see their checkpoint across

[1:00:18] the board. Let me go your way. Check point across the board, CBA, and it's going to automatically

[1:00:23] tell them if they're on track or off track to talk about those hoppers and droppers that Veronica

[1:00:28] I could just departed us and talked about.

[1:00:29] So we're building systems that match our accountability talk,

[1:00:33] but more to laser focus level at the teacher level,

[1:00:36] and the go to what Mr. Sellers was talking about

[1:00:38] about being nimble.

[1:00:40] It's those moments that provide being nimble.

[1:00:42] We build the system, we build the common language,

[1:00:44] we build our instructional drivers,

[1:00:47] but it's in those PLC moments where we triangulate

[1:00:49] the data that we're looking for,

[1:00:51] that we can see if we can lock them up and tackle

[1:00:54] each and every time, every week.

[1:00:56] Thank you.

[1:00:58] Thank you.

[1:01:00] Mr. Beach?

[1:01:02] Just a comment.

[1:01:03] Yes sir.

[1:01:04] For everybody out there.

[1:01:06] Fifth grader is going into sixth grade.

[1:01:08] The maturity level is not real good.

[1:01:11] You know, I mean, the hormones are kicking in.

[1:01:13] They're off the chart.

[1:01:14] No, I have a sixth grade for myself.

[1:01:15] You think about that as these kids progress.

[1:01:18] You know, and we look at four high schools that are A's.

[1:01:21] Two, they were almost there also.

[1:01:23] So something is happening right that we're doing back in this grade level.

[1:01:27] So even though we may not see it in the way we wanted on those elementary and sixth grade levels but we're getting something right because of the graduation rates and the things that are going on there.

[1:01:36] So I applaud what we're doing is just that we look at those numbers and we're sitting and going, how do we improve that?

[1:01:42] And I know that we're data driven, so I appreciate your efforts and I appreciate everything you guys are doing it because I think we're going to get there.

[1:01:49] and I think everybody that I've seen so far in our campuses are on board.

[1:01:55] We're putting things in place for the campuses that needed the help.

[1:01:58] And I'm feel real positive that we're going to see even more improvements.

[1:02:02] Thank you all very much.

[1:02:03] We will get that a.

[1:02:06] All right, next up, student management.

[1:02:21] Chairperson Stanley, Board of Trustees, Dr. Lopez.

[1:02:25] I'm not sure if we've met, but I'm Mary Garcia, Director of Student Services.

[1:02:31] We're going to wrap up tonight's scorecard presentation with our student management

[1:02:36] update.

[1:02:38] Last year, the state had just passed hundreds of bills, many relating to student discipline

[1:02:43] and safety.

[1:02:45] As expected, implementation of that legislation, specifically House Bill 6, contributed

[1:02:52] to increases in some of our discipline numbers.

[1:02:56] But we also saw some very positive outcomes.

[1:02:59] We are going to walk through those changes tonight and I also want to point out you have

[1:03:05] a packet in front of you of our student discipline report and that's for you to have a deeper

[1:03:11] dive into the data.

[1:03:14] Okay, so how many students are actually affected by discipline?

[1:03:20] Well, out of the 52,000 students that came in and out of our district last year, more

[1:03:25] More than 50,000 had no serious or reportable discipline incidents.

[1:03:32] That's 97% of our students.

[1:03:37] Only a little over 1700 students had serious or reportable incidents.

[1:03:43] That's incidents such as fights, assaults, honor off-campus felonies, controlled substance

[1:03:50] since violations, nicotine, THC, vapes, things like that.

[1:03:55] And that is especially significant because last year with House Bill 6,

[1:04:00] it expanded the number of behaviors that districts are required to report.

[1:04:07] And we can go a little deeper and include the code of conduct violations.

[1:04:13] Out of all incidents combined, including those general code of conduct violations,

[1:04:18] over 47,000 of our students had zero incidents.

[1:04:25] That means no document authorities, no cell phone violations,

[1:04:30] no dress code violations, zero.

[1:04:33] That is something we're celebrating.

[1:04:36] You also see here that our discipline focus is concentrated

[1:04:39] among a relatively small number of students.

[1:04:43] Only 569 students had five or more incidents.

[1:04:47] So, who are these students, and where should we focus?

[1:04:52] This chart here helps us identify students who are beginning to show repeated behaviors,

[1:04:57] particularly those reaching three to five incidents.

[1:05:02] That's where we need to start focusing our concerns.

[1:05:06] Our goal isn't simply to reduce discipline numbers.

[1:05:10] It's to reduce those repeated behaviors and help more students be successful in the classroom.

[1:05:16] So

[1:05:19] this slide here is a comparison of exclusionary consequences with the previous years, with 2425.

[1:05:28] You see that most of our consequences increased from the previous year.

[1:05:34] Because of all the changes from the legislature, we really consider the 2526 school year to be our baseline year.

[1:05:43] But I kept the comparison for the 2425 school year so that you see the increase.

[1:05:51] So the important question isn't whether the numbers increase but it's why did they

[1:05:56] increase.

[1:05:57] There are two main reasons for those increases in all of those areas.

[1:06:03] Number one is just the implementation of state law.

[1:06:07] And number two is the consistent documentation of targeted behaviors.

[1:06:13] So for the state law, House Bill 6 expanded mandatory discipline requirements.

[1:06:20] They added new reportable behaviors.

[1:06:24] So things that we didn't have to report before, they added that.

[1:06:28] They also added new allowable consequences.

[1:06:31] So previously, administrators could not combine in-school suspension and out-of-school suspensions.

[1:06:38] For the 25-26 school year, they could, so that increased those placements.

[1:06:45] Also, the expanded jurisdiction over behaviors.

[1:06:49] Previously, there were things that happened off campus that we could not respond to.

[1:06:55] Now, we respond.

[1:06:56] That's the increase in all of those JJAEP placements right there.

[1:07:02] So, as we look at the next few slides,

[1:07:04] you're going to see that some levels were impacted more than others,

[1:07:09] and the data is going to help explain why.

[1:07:14] Okay, we're going to take a look at the level that was least impacted.

[1:07:20] This is middle school.

[1:07:22] This is really a very positive story, actually.

[1:07:24] If you see here with middle school your in-school suspension, out-of-school

[1:07:28] suspension and your DAEP placements all continue to decline and they only had

[1:07:34] two JJEP placements. So unlike elementary there were no new reporting codes

[1:07:42] that significantly impacted middle school. The expanded jurisdiction for off-campus

[1:07:48] offenses primarily affected the older students, so high school.

[1:07:54] So as a result, middle school exclusionary discipline is at its lowest level in 3 years.

[1:08:01] So this is really a celebration slide.

[1:08:04] So I also want to point out something else.

[1:08:06] Out of the total students in middle school, the 11,367, you see how many students come to

[1:08:14] school every day successful.

[1:08:16] We have 463 there who have three incidents and only 239 have five or more.

[1:08:23] That's where we need to focus our efforts right there.

[1:08:29] So moving into high school.

[1:08:31] High school data was impacted by two legislative changes,

[1:08:36] and also their consistent use and documentation of targeted behaviors.

[1:08:41] So House Bill 6 expanded jurisdiction over behaviors,

[1:08:44] including those certain off-campus offenses I just mentioned before and that

[1:08:50] contributed to all those increases in JJ AEP placements. Also House Bill

[1:08:55] 1481 we're going to talk a little bit more about that in a minute but that was

[1:08:59] the cell phone policy. That was a big implementation for high school and

[1:09:04] documentation of that was very important. So we created a specific behavior code

[1:09:12] for high school to track and those violations increased some of our in school suspension.

[1:09:21] The increase at high school, I want to point this out, reflects the new state requirements

[1:09:26] and really just the consistent enforcement of code of conduct behaviors such as tardies,

[1:09:33] truancies, cell phones.

[1:09:35] There was not an increase for serious on-campus behaviors at the high school at all.

[1:09:41] And so you can see there again over 14,000 students go to high school every day with zero

[1:09:48] incidents.

[1:09:49] And so we have the 275 students there that we need to focus on that have five or more

[1:09:54] incidents.

[1:09:57] So now let's take a look at our last level which is elementary.

[1:10:02] We did see increases in ISS and OSS in elementary.

[1:10:06] So, due to House Bill 6, which now allows for OSS for students under grade 3, I don't

[1:10:16] know if you remember that, they do allow for that suspension for certain repeated or

[1:10:21] significant classroom disruptions for students below grade 3.

[1:10:25] They created two behavior codes just for this, so that is one reason for those increase.

[1:10:31] Campuses are expected to use progressive discipline first, so before suspension, they usually

[1:10:39] use in-school suspension first, so that's another reason for those increases.

[1:10:44] But let's look at some other things.

[1:10:46] Look at those D-A-E-P placements.

[1:10:48] They decreased by half.

[1:10:50] Something else that's not reflected here.

[1:10:52] We saw a large decline in the requests for teacher removals under chapter 37.

[1:11:02] And so even though we see some increases here, the severe behaviors and the teacher removals

[1:11:08] requests, they did decline.

[1:11:11] So the other thing I want to point out here is 23,681 students out of a little bit over 24,000

[1:11:19] students come to school successful every day.

[1:11:22] And we have a small population here in elementary that we need to target, the 54 students.

[1:11:31] Okay, so I mentioned this before, House Bill 1481, that was another significant change

[1:11:38] this year.

[1:11:39] We were talking about it at this time last year.

[1:11:42] We started off with a strong board policy, clear consequences, and consistent communication

[1:11:48] with our students and family.

[1:11:50] Campus has enforced those expectations, high schools especially because that's where

[1:11:56] that we needed that enforcement.

[1:11:59] What was the result of that?

[1:12:01] We saw decreases in cyberbullying, terroristic threats, and inappropriate sexual communication.

[1:12:09] We saw the positive outcomes we hoped to achieve, fewer serious behaviors and safer learning

[1:12:15] environments for our students.

[1:12:17] So that was a successful implementation.

[1:12:23] I'm going to start kind of where I left off.

[1:12:27] Despite a year of legislative changes,

[1:12:30] several of our most serious behaviors,

[1:12:33] including on-campus felonies,

[1:12:37] fighting assaults on employees,

[1:12:41] terroristic threats, all declined this year.

[1:12:45] Every one of them went down.

[1:12:46] And so as we move into the 26th and 27th school year, safe schools remain a top priority in GISD.

[1:12:55] We will continue to target those specific behaviors.

[1:12:58] We will continue to strengthen our classroom and individualized student supports.

[1:13:04] We'll continue to implement the legislative requirements and document across all campuses.

[1:13:10] Ultimately, our goal remains the same.

[1:13:12] to provide positive, safe learning environments where every student has the opportunity to be successful.

[1:13:20] And I'll answer any questions you have at this time.

[1:13:26] Mr. Beech, just real quick, thank you for this report, very good.

[1:13:31] What can an SRO officer do as far as help on the campus? Is there anything that they have

[1:13:40] legal rights on or they to support what we're doing here, you know, maybe in

[1:13:46] talking to some of those five kids or whatever, or 25 kids that we're having

[1:13:50] trouble with or whatever and taking them out and just visiting with them and

[1:13:54] trying to, are we utilizing that or can they do that?

[1:13:57] Yes, they're great mentors. They should never be called to classrooms and be

[1:14:02] involved in discipline. I will say that but I know I had an excellent

[1:14:09] But SRO at my senior middle school when I was the principal and officer Carter did a great

[1:14:15] job with talking to our students and mentoring them.

[1:14:19] And so a good SRO always is there for students and I've seen SRO's at the campus do that.

[1:14:27] Yes, sir.

[1:14:30] Committee, Mr. Selvers?

[1:14:33] Just out of curiosity, what do our discipline metrics look like when we cross them with or

[1:14:41] across reference them with our parent engagement data?

[1:14:45] That's a really good question and you're saying so schools that have high parent engagement,

[1:14:55] lower discipline, or higher discipline.

[1:14:57] I'm making assumptions.

[1:14:58] I'm just curious.

[1:14:59] Felters.

[1:15:00] Really great question. And the reason why I asked that question is you talked about the ones that had three or more incidences or five or more incidences. And I'm just curious. I mean, I'm not asking the teachers to necessarily be best friends with parents, but I'm just curious to understand like, what is that relationship? Or if is is there a relationship with, you know, the teacher and the parent of those students who are creating the majority of the incidences? I'm always a great teacher.

[1:15:29] and a great campus in having relationships with parents

[1:15:32] is going to build that bridge to work with,

[1:15:36] hey, we're trying this intervention at home.

[1:15:39] I mean, at school, you know, trying it.

[1:15:41] So that's a good point, but I've never exactly

[1:15:44] looked at the parent engagement.

[1:15:46] I mean, studies have shown absolutely.

[1:15:49] Right.

[1:15:51] One other question that I have is, for teachers at Handle,

[1:15:55] a higher, I guess, concentration out of challenging situations.

[1:15:59] How are they being supported from the administration to resolve or, you know.

[1:16:07] Well, there are support staff that can come in and model working with those students,

[1:16:15] behavior specialists that can come in and show them different interventions.

[1:16:19] We have a lot of different interventions for behavior for those students.

[1:16:24] There's campus coaches that can come in for behavior.

[1:16:28] We definitely have to get the teacher's supports in those areas.

[1:16:33] And administrators can help to counselors.

[1:16:36] We definitely get them support on that.

[1:16:39] And would you say, and this might be a reach, I'm just curious.

[1:16:43] We talk about tier one instruction and being able to deliver that.

[1:16:46] Certainly if you have a disruptive class or more students that are a little bit more disruptive,

[1:16:50] that may be more difficult for teachers to manage that, you know, higher level of tier

[1:16:56] one instruction.

[1:16:57] So, I'm just trying to figure out like how all of that plays together.

[1:17:00] Well, tier one behavior systems in class also help eliminate some of that behavior.

[1:17:07] If you have strong tier one behavior systems in your class, it eliminates that, so we always

[1:17:13] want them to have great classroom management and, you know, they are trained on that.

[1:17:17] Also, sometimes you look at that and you try to work with your scheduling and you might

[1:17:23] have to, especially at secondary, you might have to do some rescheduling.

[1:17:27] You know, sometimes if you have a lot of a group of students, you might want to break

[1:17:31] that up or whatever.

[1:17:33] There's little things like that that we have to do.

[1:17:36] But if a teacher has a high concentration, yeah, you have to get in there and help them.

[1:17:43] And the administrator, she can call in a campus behavior coach, a behavior specialist,

[1:17:48] absolutely.

[1:17:50] But usually, it's not a large number in one class when you're looking at those numbers.

[1:18:02] I can speak to that a little bit just with our campuses and especially at some of our schools

[1:18:07] that traditionally have had higher levels of discipline.

[1:18:12] It really is about the intentional scheduling.

[1:18:14] And so when we look at a school like Lyles, one of the reasons why they had their nine-point

[1:18:20] gain is because they knew their students.

[1:18:24] And this is what we're pushing all of our campuses to do is to know where those students

[1:18:28] are.

[1:18:29] Dr. Garcia gave us the numbers.

[1:18:32] These are the kids that are going to traditionally get more issues.

[1:18:36] We know it from last year.

[1:18:37] We know they've already had a few.

[1:18:39] Well, last year at Liles, they had those kids schedules on their ID.

[1:18:44] And so they knew that they had to go to these classrooms at least once each period, just

[1:18:50] to positively reinforce the behavior, or make sure that if that student was being disruptive

[1:18:56] and not allowing other students to learn, that that's not going to be okay.

[1:19:00] And that we are not going to allow one student to remove the learning or eliminate the learning

[1:19:06] for 30 others.

[1:19:06] We have to intervene and intervene right away.

[1:19:10] And I'll say that I think our teachers have done a tremendous job because when you look at the number going from three to five,

[1:19:17] that decrease is our teachers and our administrators intervening reaching out to parents and helping students make better decisions.

[1:19:26] When you said they had the schedules on their badge, or who is they?

[1:19:31] Okay.

[1:19:32] The assistant principal, the instructional coaches.

[1:19:34] Okay.

[1:19:35] And they were there, every period, each period, they would rotate.

[1:19:39] Everyone had to touch that classroom at least once, each period.

[1:19:44] Dr. Garcia, you said something earlier that kind of peaked my interest, and I hadn't heard this before, but

[1:19:49] you talked about Tier 1 behavioral systems.

[1:19:52] Talk to me a little bit more about that.

[1:19:54] Tier 1 behavior is just systems for all students, it's-

[1:20:00] Thank you. Thank you, Mike. I'm sorry. Okay. Structuring your classroom. It's how you rotate

[1:20:08] from centers to in lessons. It's how you line up. It's how you transition from one class to

[1:20:15] another. It's those positive behavior interventions and support. You think that kids come in and they

[1:20:22] just naturally know how to go from one to another, how to line up in a classroom, how to transition

[1:20:29] from lessons, how to put their papers up, but teachers have to teach every bit of that.

[1:20:35] So those are tier one, because every student has to follow them.

[1:20:41] Cafeteria, if you don't structure your cafeteria well, you would have chaos.

[1:20:47] So everything is purposeful.

[1:20:49] Those are tier one.

[1:20:50] Thank you.

[1:20:51] It keeps us safe.

[1:20:54] Anything else?

[1:20:56] I had one question.

[1:20:59] You said here instances of what we have to report that we didn't have to.

[1:21:03] Could you give me an example of the things that we have to report that we never had to

[1:21:07] report before?

[1:21:09] Yes, ma'am.

[1:21:10] The biggest thing I can tell you is all of the off-campus behaviors.

[1:21:16] For example, before if you had an armed robbery, things like that, if you had, and you would think before we would have to do this, but if you had a student with a gun, deadly weapon, oddly enough, we did not have jurisdiction for things like that before.

[1:21:36] So, we now have to report that and actually expel.

[1:21:43] So, the consequences were raised for things that we used to.

[1:21:48] Okay, we may just give a DAP.

[1:21:50] We have mandatory consequences.

[1:21:53] They also added behavior codes for on-campus.

[1:21:57] So, we have new codes for things that we didn't have before.

[1:22:02] For example, they have a disruption of campus activities.

[1:22:08] We didn't have that before.

[1:22:10] It's actually a mandatory D-A-E-P now as it should be and it's pretty specific.

[1:22:17] I can include one of those for like just all the new codes in the behaviors because it's

[1:22:22] pretty interesting.

[1:22:23] There's about 12 of them.

[1:22:25] It would be very interested in it because it almost sounds like that teaching, that tier

[1:22:31] one behavior. It's like they put some codes in there that said this is just behaviors

[1:22:36] that we can't allow to happen anymore. Somehow we let them happen. Yes, ma'am. That's

[1:22:41] exactly what it is. Or some of them were done off campus and we never had jurisdiction.

[1:22:46] And that's what she was referring to. So if a kid had a weapon, I don't want you to think

[1:22:50] she'd they brought a gun to school. Yeah, we heard a lot about it. This was off campus.

[1:22:54] They had something and all of a sudden they said, oh no, that's going to be a city matter

[1:23:00] because that happened after hours out of school.

[1:23:03] Well, anything that affects the school is now school's responsibility.

[1:23:07] So, it's a, but how do we find out about it?

[1:23:09] Is it up to now the city PD to let us know that they had an incident with a-

[1:23:15] That's a good question.

[1:23:15] So, you, so sometimes they don't even know, right?

[1:23:18] So, you might get something on social media that shows something happened.

[1:23:22] And so, we get it, we verify it, and now we can address it.

[1:23:26] Where before people would say, well, you're going to have to call the police,

[1:23:29] and then the police would have to do something different and then we'd wait for charges, it's much different now.

[1:23:36] So the notification doesn't necessarily have to come from the police.

[1:23:40] We can now address things that are happening.

[1:23:43] When they tell them themselves, through social media we can get them.

[1:23:47] Right, thank you, thank you.

[1:23:48] We also will receive the police report and it's a 1527 and we act on it.

[1:23:54] But before we weren't allowed to give any discipline for it,

[1:23:58] and so now we are able to, and that's a big deal.

[1:24:03] Well, thank you, anything else?

[1:24:05] Thank you very much.

[1:24:06] All of you that presented, because there was quite a few of you.

[1:24:16] OK, so now we will move on to Dr.

[1:24:22] Barbetta.

[1:24:23] Oh, well, that's not Dr. Barbetta.

[1:24:25] But consider approval of the choice of school calendar.

[1:24:30] Good evening.

[1:24:31] Chairperson Stanley, Board of Trustees, Dr. Lopez.

[1:24:34] My name is Erica Carbohal, and I am the Assistant Director of Enrollment and School Choice.

[1:24:40] And I will be going over the 2026 Choice of School Results and also proposing our 2027-2028 Choice of School Window Dates for approval.

[1:24:52] As of this morning, our enrollment is 47366.

[1:24:57] We are hopeful that this number will continue to increase as we welcome Lady Rollie's

[1:25:03] new families that are moving into the district. I also want to make note that the enrollment number

[1:25:09] that is shown here and that was originally in your board notes is a number that was reflected

[1:25:14] from early last week an updated copy with this morning's current number of enrollment was provided

[1:25:21] for you as a reference.

[1:25:27] This table illustrates student placement based on the ranking of their

[1:25:31] campus preferences for pre-K through 12th grade students.

[1:25:35] Of the students who participated in the choice of school process, 8,151 students were matched,

[1:25:43] with one with their first choice, meaning the majority of our families received their top selection.

[1:25:50] Overall, 10,632 students were successfully placed through the choice of school process.

[1:25:56] This

[1:26:00] table provides an overview of the final placement outcomes for all choice of school applicants pre K through 12th grade.

[1:26:07] Only 61 students were not placed, and these cases were primarily the result of requested campuses reaching capacity or other eligibility and program specific factors.

[1:26:18] As we look at the overall results for 2026, 2027, a choice of school, 99.4% of our students

[1:26:29] who submitted a choice of school form were matched to one of the six selected choices.

[1:26:35] For the vast majority of our families, the process resulted in the placement at one of the

[1:26:40] campuses they selected, providing students with access to programs and schools that best meet

[1:26:46] their interests and educational needs.

[1:26:48] Now let's take a deeper dive into Pre-K and Kindergarten.

[1:26:55] Overall, we received 3,295 forms across both of the grade levels.

[1:27:02] For Pre-K, we had 1,285 students match to one of their six choices, with only 18 students unmatched.

[1:27:11] For Kindergarten students, 1,976 students were matched, leaving just 16 students unmatched,

[1:27:18] giving us still that 99% match rate at both grade levels.

[1:27:23] These results demonstrate that our matching process was highly successful,

[1:27:27] allowing the overwhelming majority of our youngest learners to receive one of their selected campuses.

[1:27:36] Once the choice of school timeline is approved, our work really truly begins.

[1:27:41] We immediately begin planning a year-round outreach and family engagement strategy

[1:27:46] to ensure families are informed and supported throughout the enrollment process.

[1:27:50] We kick off with the eighth grade field trip and fall explorer event,

[1:27:55] coordinated by our magnet team at the Curtis-Coloss Center,

[1:27:58] where students and families learn about high school pathways, programs, and magnet opportunities.

[1:28:03] Through December and January, our enrollment and

[1:28:06] magnet teams host support nights for students entering first through 12th grade,

[1:28:10] providing hands-on assistance with the choice of school forms, enrollment applications,

[1:28:14] and we typically see over 100 families each of those nights.

[1:28:19] In the spring, our focus shifts to Pre-K and Kindergarten families.

[1:28:23] We visit local childcare centers, partner with our family and community engagement department,

[1:28:29] host our annual Pre-K and Kinder Explore event, and also offer support nights for

[1:28:34] our families to complete the application, review the documentation and prepare for

[1:28:38] successful start.

[1:28:39] as most of the time, this is the first time our families are experiencing enrollment for their little.

[1:28:46] And our outreach continues even in the summer.

[1:28:50] The Groundwork Outreach team goes directly into the neighborhoods to help families enroll from home.

[1:28:56] The U-Belong campaign brings together district leader volunteers from various departments,

[1:29:01] many that are here tonight, that went out to apartment complexes and communities to share enrollment information

[1:29:08] and provide families with district resources.

[1:29:12] Ultimately, enrollment is not just a seasonal effort.

[1:29:16] It is a year-round commitment.

[1:29:18] Through intentional outreach, district-wide partnerships,

[1:29:22] and dedicated staff, we will continue to ensure every family

[1:29:26] feels welcome, informed, and supported.

[1:29:31] So as we look ahead for 2728, the Choices School process,

[1:29:35] is we've identified two key opportunities

[1:29:38] to enhance the family experience

[1:29:40] based on what we've learned just this past year.

[1:29:43] So the first will be that we will standardize

[1:29:45] the access to Avala Apply by implementing a 24 to 40-hour

[1:29:50] account creation turnaround

[1:29:52] through a secure file transfer protocol.

[1:29:54] With multiple data transfers occurring each day,

[1:29:58] families will have a faster

[1:30:00] More consistent access to the choice of school form, allowing them to begin the choice of school process sooner with fewer delays. Second, we recognize that our families did not realize that pre-K is considered a transitional grade level, and we will develop a targeted communication plan specifically for our pre-K families with the communication and public relations department, as well as our campuses that actually offer pre-K. This communication will help provide clear guidance on enrollment

[1:30:29] and the choice of school timelines, the programs that are available to their students

[1:30:34] and the transition from pre-K to kindergarten.

[1:30:38] Helping families better understand each step of the process

[1:30:41] and feel confident as they make their choices for their students.

[1:30:45] These improvements are designed to make the choice of school process more efficient,

[1:30:50] more transparent, and even more family centered as we continue to refine and strengthen

[1:30:55] our choice of school practices.

[1:30:58] So, looking into 2027-2028, we are proposing the Choice of School window for students entering

[1:31:06] first through 12th grade to begin December 1st and in on January 12th of 2027, and then

[1:31:13] for our pre-K and kindergarten students, we would begin April 1st, and we would end that

[1:31:17] on the 30th.

[1:31:20] Are there any questions?

[1:31:21] All right.

[1:31:23] Committee, any questions?

[1:31:28] Okay, no, I don't see any questions.

[1:31:32] That's it, thank you very much.

[1:31:38] Okay, and then we'll move on now to action item.

[1:31:42] Consider an approved certification of compliance with certain laws

[1:31:46] under the Texas Education Code 39.08 as enacted by a Senate Bill 12, Miss Ray.

[1:31:53] Good evening, Chairperson Stanley, Board of Trustees.

[1:31:57] Dr. Lopez, before you is a compliance certification that will be for vote at the board meeting

[1:32:09] later this month.

[1:32:12] And before you also in orange folders are all the materials that talk about this, I had previously

[1:32:22] put in the Board Insights, the TA, to the Administrator notification about SB 12 and that certification.

[1:32:34] There's also a TASB guidance in your packet as well that outlines what that is and the board

[1:32:42] will be voting on it at our board meeting as I mentioned.

[1:32:46] And also in your packet is a compliance certification template, which is what Dr. Lopez will be certifying to and the board will be voting on.

[1:32:58] So what exactly will you be voting on?

[1:33:01] If you look within your folder, you'll see what is actually required in section 39.008, and it's a pretty short bill, so I'll go through it.

[1:33:13] It's a certification approved by the majority, the vote of the board, that we will be submitting electronically.

[1:33:23] A description of the policies and procedures required by section 11.005 and 28.002 and add how employees and contractors were notified.

[1:33:37] provide whether or not any existing policies and programs were altered to ensure compliance

[1:33:45] and any cost savings resulting from actions taken by the school district.

[1:33:51] So what exactly is it?

[1:33:53] If you recall, when we brought update 126, we had to certify that we had done away with

[1:34:05] any DI initiatives, protocols, teachings, and we also had to let all of our vendors and

[1:34:15] our employees know that we had done that as well.

[1:34:20] And with updates, 1.19, 1.22, 1.26, and 1.27 that TASB had put out, all those policies

[1:34:32] these incorporated that and we adopted those policies in its entirety so we can certify

[1:34:39] that we are compliant with those laws and this is all part of the larger SB-12 that came

[1:34:47] out in the 89th legislature. So how were our contractors notified that they cannot teach

[1:34:55] any DEI or we cannot adopt any DEI curriculum?

[1:35:00] Well, I asked our new executive director of purchasing

[1:35:03] and she fortunately was able to apprise me

[1:35:07] that we updated our RFP boilerplate language

[1:35:12] on May 15th, 2026 to add a section

[1:35:17] to say that we prohibit any diversity, equity,

[1:35:21] and inclusion activities or duties.

[1:35:24] and the district shall not enter into or continue to do business with any contractor that intentionally or knowingly engages in DEI duties or signs DEI duties to another individual.

[1:35:39] Any contract found to be in violation shall be subject to termination with an opportunity for appeal according to Board Policy C.J. Legal.

[1:35:49] Also, recently, all employees were provided a copy of the employee handbook, and with

[1:35:56] that we're all our recent policies that we had adopted through updates 119, 122, 126,

[1:36:04] and 127.

[1:36:05] So trustees, I can assure you that we are compliant with the law, and you can faithfully vote

[1:36:14] on the approval of that on our September Board meeting.

[1:36:20] Are there any questions?

[1:36:22] There any questions, Board?

[1:36:26] I see none.

[1:36:27] Well, thank you very much.

[1:36:28] Thank you.

[1:36:30] Okay.

[1:36:33] Well, with that, that takes us to executive session.

[1:36:37] Do we have executive session?

[1:36:39] Nope.

[1:36:40] Okay, so I would enter.

[1:36:42] I would consider adjournment here.

[1:36:45] So move.

[1:36:45] Okay, there you go.

[1:36:46] And so we are done at 9-11.

Sep 08, 2026 District Affairs Committee Meeting

Agenda

Transcript