TEMPLE INDEPENDENT SCHOOL DISTRICT REGULAR MEETING OF THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES December 14, 2015 Minutes The Board of Trustees met in regular session on Monday, December 14, 2015 in the Joe Everton Conference Room of the TISD Central Administration Offices, 200 North 23rd Street, Temple, Texas in accordance with Chapter 551 of the Government Code. President Wright called the meeting to order at 6:02 p.m. and declared a quorum present. The Pledge of Allegiance was led by Mr. Wright. Members Present
Mr. Steve Wright, President; Mr. Dan Posey, Vice President; Mrs. Jennifer Davis, Secretary; Mrs. Linell Davis, arrived at 6:34 p.m.; Mr. Ronnie Gaines; Mrs. Shannon Gowan, departed at 6:53 p.m.; and Ms. Virginia Suarez, Members.
Members Absent
None.
Others Present
Dr. Robin Battershell, Superintendent; Mrs. Marilyn Krumnow, Secretary to the Superintendent; representative of the news media; and various staff members and citizens.
Public Forum
The following persons addressed the Board of Trustees during the Open Forum section of the meeting: Mr. Craig Nash with the Texas Hunger Initiative, located at Baylor University-Waco, Texas, introduced himself stating his job as an outreach coordinator is to bring the stakeholders all to the table. Mr. Nash stated he has already met several Temple ISD administrators and is very impressed with what the district does and will be involved in several meetings in the next few months.
Board President’s
Mr. Wright stated the Superintendent’s Appraisal Documents were distributed under separate cover in the board packet. Information is due back on Friday, December 18, 2015. During the Christmas break, Mr. Wright will compile the information and meet with Dr. Battershell to review on January 4, 2016. The appraisal information will be presented at the January 11, 2015 regular board meeting. It has been the preference to conduct the appraisal in open forum. Mr. Wright made an announcement of Board Training Required Hours for January 1, 2015 - December 14, 2015. Texas Education Code - Sec. 11.159 requires annually at the last regular meeting of the calendar year, the current president announces the name of each board members hours. All board members have
completed the required training hours for 2015. There were no future items of discussion. Superintendent’s Report
Improve Attendance Improve Behavior Dr. Battershell spoke with the DPS officer in charge of the bus accident two weeks ago. The officer was very complimentary of our TISD staff. He said that we had at least two additional adults on every bus in addition to the bus driver. They kept the students on the buses and kept them calm. These are a few suggestions he made for the future: Don't use that road. Dr. Battershell visited with Patrick Cain, Director of Transportation, and we will not and we will also assess other small FM roads that we travel on including 317. He said to limit the number of buses in a caravan. Put a break between every 3 buses etc. He said that after an incident it is OK to continue to move forward into a safe area and not just come to a dead stop. This probably would have prevented the other buses from hitting the back of our first bus. Dr. Battershell wrote a thank you note to him and the other two officers working the accident. They were great and she enjoyed speaking with this officer, Trooper Josh Cashion. Improve Academics The District has had trouble with band-width. What we put in 5 years has run out! We added 500 meg last week. It will be dedicated to the high school. An additional gigabyte of memory will be dedicated to the rest of the campuses including BYOD, Bring Your Own Device. This will increase band width by 1/3! We hope to have this in place sometime next week. Other Timelines for interviewing construction management firms are below: Dec. 17 - RFQ goes out Jan. 14 - RFQ's are due back to CAO Jan. 15 - Board members will receive packets to read, review and rate Feb. 1 - Board ratings are due back to Marilyn by Noon TBD - Meeting with Kent, Steve, Robin and Bert Pope to go through the composite rating scales from you all and to finalize the companies who will receive an interview Feb. 10-17 - Somewhere in this timeframe we will interview
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construction management firms with approval at a called board meeting or at the regular March 14 meeting. We will be interviewed for our bond rating in February with bonds sold in probably March or April. Kent Boyd and the City of Temple did visit on the Raye-Allen drainage issues and both organizations will be doing some work this winter. The first day to file for the board election is January 20. The last day is February 19. Shannon Gowan, District 6, and Virginia Suarez, District 1, are up this year. We will bring the recommended 2016-17 calendar to you at the regular January meeting with the following changes per the change in law to calendar minutes. Begin school on a Tuesday instead of a Monday Gain four campus workdays Meet the Teacher and Open House dates are undetermined at this time Fall Parent Conferencing Day – November 2016 Provides some type of a break each month School ends on June 1 Extra minutes are built in so that if we have a low attendance day due to illness, etc. we will not need to request a waiver. It is time to revisit our long range plan. We will work on this throughout the Spring and hold community meetings in May/June. Human Resource
Mr. Gaines made a motion to approve the 2015-2016 Personnel for seven new hires. The motion was seconded by Mrs. Jennifer Davis and carried. (6-0) Mr. Palmer stated that TRS has a new ruling for retirees calculating their top three or five years. The Teacher Retirement System of Texas (TRS) board approved a rule change to help retirees whose benefit calculation would be harmed by its adoption of a “standardized school year,” from Sept. 1 to Aug. 31. In their retirement year, the new rule allows the final average salary on which an educator’s pension is based to be calculated using the highest total compensation received during a 12-month period within his or her last 14 consecutive months on the job. The change corrects the mismatch between the employee’s contract year and TRS’ “standardized school year,” allowing
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teachers to retire at the end of their contract year rather than retiring in August to get their full pension benefits. Student Services
No action or information presented.
Curriculum and Instruction
Mrs. Denise Ayres, Director of CTE, presented an update Information Technology Strand for Temple High School. A power point presentation featured the framework under Technology and Communications for computer programming and graphic design. Mrs. Lisa Adams, Executive Director of Secondary Education, reviewed the 2016-2017 Course Catalog additions and deletions for Temple High School and middle schools. UPDATE –Changes to the High School Course Catalog 2016-17 The current course catalog is located on the web @ High School Course Catalog 2015-2016. The following courses have been added/ renamed/ or changed to the course catalog: Athletic Trainer Internship has been renamed Athletic PE IB Physics has been extended to a 2 year course to meet IB requirements Latin III is now an AP/IB course. The following courses have been added or changed in the area of CTE: Health Care Information and Classification of Diseases has been moved to a full year course Touch Data System Entry is no longer part of the Health Science course sequence Advanced Construction Technology Advanced Graphic Design will be 2 credits to accommodate the course requirements UPDATE –Changes to the Middle School Course Catalog 2016-2017 The current course catalog is located on the website @ 20152016 Middle School Course Catalog The following courses have been added to the course catalog: Pre Athletics -6th grade only Digital Innovation in the 21st Century-BMS only Theatre Design-BMS only
Finance and Operations
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Mr. Kent Boyd, Assistant Superintendent of Facilities and Operations, requested approval of authorization for a reimbursement resolution. The administration anticipates selling bonds sometime in April. The District will not have access to the
bond funds until a couple of weeks after the sale, which could be in May. In the meantime, the administration will most likely need to begin paying for architectural services, legal fees and engineering services. In addition, the administration may proceed with some smaller construction projects that could begin during the spring semester. In cases like this, school districts are allowed to expend money out of their general operating funds and seek reimbursement from the bond proceeds after the bonds have been sold. A resolution must be approved that expresses intent to do so. Bart Fowler, bond counsel with McCall, Parkhurst & Horton, LLP, has prepared the attached resolution with a limit of $3,000,000 that may be expended and later reimbursed after the bond proceeds have been received. A motion was made by Ms. Suarez and seconded by Mrs. Gowan to authorize the resolution to allow Temple ISD to reimburse the general operating fund out of bond proceeds for any costs related to construction projects, prior to the actual sale of the bonds. The motion was approved by a 7-0 vote. Mr. Posey made a motion to approve the purchase of property at 2001 North Third Street, Temple, TX 76501. The motion was seconded by Mrs. Linell Davis and approved by a 7-0 vote. Dan Curtis, owner of the French Quarter, approached the District about selling his property. The property encompasses approximately 0.864 acre located at 2001 North Third Street, adjacent to the Lamar Middle School campus. Mr. Curtis provided a written offer to the administration to sell the property for $200,000. Mr. Curtis will retain all equipment and inventory from the restaurant. The current taxable value of the property is $80,574 according to Bell County Appraisal District. The District authorized Hal Dunn to perform a market value analysis of the property in 2011. At that time, he determined the market value to be $238,000. Along with the recent approval by the Board to purchase the Baylor Scott & White property next door, the District will now own the entire piece of property on which Lamar sits including all property on the block that fronts North Third Street. This will allow for much greater flexibility in master planning for the entire site. Ten architects submitted request for qualifications (RFQ’s). Board members along with the Dr. Battershell, Kent Boyd, and Ken Wolf rated the RFQ’s and the top five were selected to be interviewed. The Board of Trustees held five architect interviews on Wednesday, December 9, 2015. A recommendation to hire the architectural firm, STANTEC, is requested for the 2015 Bond Projects. A motion was made by Mrs. Linell Davis and December 14, 2015 – 6:00 p.m. Board Minutes – Page 5
seconded by Mrs. Gowan to hire STANTEC for the 2015 Bond Projects. The motion carried. (7-0) Mrs. Gowan departed the meeting at 6:53 p.m. Board Committee Reports Facilities Committee Update
Policy Committee Update
Mr. Steve Wright, Chairman of the Facilities Committee, provided an update on the last committee meeting held on November 19, 2015. Items discussed included the following: Downtown building update and discussion; 2015 Bond construction and timeline – delivery methods, quality control, timelines and architect interview questions; Unoccupied district facilities; and Lamar Middle School. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, January 28, 2015 – 7:30 a.m. Ms. Virginia Suarez, Chairman of the Policy Committee, stated the last meeting held was November 18, 2015 and provided an update of the meeting. Items reviewed and discussed included the following policies: BF (Local) – Board Policies; CB (Local) – State and Federal Revenue Sources; CKE (Local) – Safety Program/Risk Management-Security; CO (Local) – Food Services Management; DBD (Local) – Employee Requirements and Restrictions – Conflict of Interest; DIA (Local) – Employee Welfare – Freedom from Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation; FEA (Local) – Attendance – Compulsory Attendance; FEC (Local) – Attendance – Attendance for Credit; and GRA (Local) – Relations with Governmental Entities-State and Local Governmental Authorities. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, January 27, 2015 – 4:00 p.m. A motion was made by Mr. Posey and seconded by Mr. Gaines to approve the proposed version of Board Policy BF (Local) – Board Policies. The motion was approved by a 6-0 vote. Last adopted in 2008, TASB recommends revisions to BF (LOCAL), which lays out the structure and protocol of the local policy manual, include new text reminding readers that at each policy code the legally referenced policy must be read together with the local policy to further a full understanding of a topic. In addition the change in language explains that “Board Member” and “Trustee” are used interchangeably throughout the local policy manual, without any intent to distinguish between the terms. Both terms reflect all the duties and obligations of the position. Lastly, clarifying that newly enacted law is applicable when effective. Ms. Suarez made a motion to approve Board Policy CB (Local) – State and Federal Revenue Source. The motion was seconded by Mrs. Linell Davis and approved by a 6-0 vote. As a result of new
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federal regulations governing all federal grants and awards, known as the new Education Department General Administrative Regulations (EDGAR), a new local policy on state and federal revenue sources is recommended for inclusion at CB (LOCAL). The new policy clarifies the Superintendent’s authority regarding state and federal grants and awards and provides for development of relevant administrative procedures as required by EDGAR. In addition, the policy includes provisions concerning conflicts of interest and gifts and aligns these federally required provisions with the disclosure amounts established in Chapter 176 of the Local Government Code applicable to state law disclosures. The policy is a new local policy to the district. A motion was made by Ms. Suarez and seconded by Mrs. Jennifer Davis to approve Board Policy CKE (Local) – Safety Program/Risk Management-Security Personnel. The motion carried. (6-0) For School Districts, like Temple ISD, that have provisions at CKE (LOCAL) addressing commissioned district police officers or an agreement for the presence of school resource officers, TASB recommends revisions to this local policy correspond to the training provisions of HB 2684 to require school district peace officers and school resource officers to complete a model training curriculum developed by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement. The recommended language is broadly drafted to be suitable for districts of any size. Ms. Suarez made a motion to approve Board Policy CO (Local) – Food Services Management. The motion was seconded by Mrs. Linell Davis and unanimously approved by a 6-0 vote. To comply with provisions from HB 3562 regarding insufficient meal card balances, TASB recommends inclusion of a new local policy at CO (LOCAL) on Food Services Management. The new recommended text requires the Superintendent to develop administrative regulations specifying the length of the grace period during which a student may continue to purchase meals when a card or account is exhausted and addressing parental notification, including a schedule of repayment. The policy is a new local policy to the district. A motion was made by Mr. Posey and seconded Mr. Gaines to approve Board Policy DBD (Local) – Employee Requirements and Restrictions – Conflict of Interest. The motion was approved by a 6-0 vote. Revisions at DBD (LOCAL) address conflict of interest correspond to changes from HB 23 regarding Local Government Code Chapter 176 disclosure requirements. Text requiring only the Superintendent to file a conflicts disclosure December 14, 2015 – 6:00 p.m. Board Minutes – Page 7
statement is recommended for deletion, as the law now requires any employee who exercises discretion in the planning, recommending, selecting, or contracting of a vendor to file a disclosure statement. A recommended revision to policy DIA (LOCAL) on Freedom from Harassment, Discrimination, and Retaliation (Title IX or ADA/Section 504 Coordinator – Joe Palmer for employees) is in response to HB 1151, which prohibits sexual harassment of unpaid interns. Solely for the purposes of this policy, unpaid interns are included in the definition of “employee” and are thereby required to report any alleged harassment and comply with the other procedural elements of the policy. In addition, to eliminate the need for the Board to readopt DIA (LOCAL) every time the District’s Title IX or ADA/Section 504 coordinator changes, TASB have moved the contact information for those positions to DIA (EXHIBIT); which is not a Board-adopted document. A motion was made by Mrs. Jennifer Davis and seconded by Mrs. Linell Davis to approve Board Policy DIA (Local) – Employee Welfare – Freedom and Discrimination, Harassment and Retaliation. The motion was approved by a 6-0 vote. Ms. Suarez made a motion to approve Board Policy FEA (Local) – Attendance – Compulsory Attendance. The motion was seconded by Mr. Posey and approved by a 6-0 vote. Recommended changes to policy FEA (LOCAL) on compulsory attendance correspond with provisions from HB 2398. Because the law now extends compulsory attendance to students through age 18 and requires a student who voluntarily attends or enrolls after his or her 19th birthday to attend school for the entire period the program of instruction is offered, TASB recommends the deletion of the local policy provision to the same effect. Provisions regarding withdrawal for nonattendance are also recommended for revision to make them applicable to students under the age of 19. A motion was made by Ms. Suarez and seconded by Mr. Gaines to approve FEC (Local) – Attendance – Attendance for Credit. The motion was unanimously approved 6-0. Revisions to FEC (LOCAL) addressing Attendance Committees are to improve the structure and to clarify that the policy applies when a student has not been in attendance for 90 percent of the days that the class is offered. In addition, text regarding the Attendance Committee appeal process has been simplified to give the District more flexibility by deleting the reference to the specific level at which December 14, 2015 – 6:00 p.m. Board Minutes – Page 8
the appeal of the Attendance Committee’s decision must begin. Ms. Suarez made a motion to approve Board Policy GRA (Local) – Relations with Governmental Entities – State and Local Governmental Authorities. The motion was seconded by Mrs. Linell Davis and approved unanimously. (6-0) At policy GRA (LOCAL) addressing state and governmental authorities, TASB recommends the addition of a cross-reference to policy code FO as a reminder of the Campus Behavior Coordinator’s obligation to provide written notice to a parent when a student is taken into custody by law enforcement under Chapter 37 of the Education Code. Consent Agenda
A motion was made by Mr. Posey for approval of the consent agenda items VII, Item A-1, B, D, E, and F, 1-2 and tabling Item C – Interlocal Agreement with the City of Temple for School Resource Officers. The motion was seconded by Mr. Gaines and unanimously approved. (6-0) Items included 2016 Chevrolet 2500 Express Cargo Van CG23405- $25,798; Walk-In Cooler/Freezer - $57,255; 3-5 Math Student Textbooks and Teacher Materials - $179,230; Out-of-State Travel – THS Highlighters, April 27-30, 2016 at Kansas City Jazz Summit in Kansas City, KS; History Tour to Washington, D.C. for Lamar Middle School and Travis Science Academy June 6-9, 2016; Budget Amendment #05; and November School Board Meeting minutes.
Adjournment
The meeting adjourned at 7:12 p.m.
Steve Wright, President
Jennifer Davis, Secretary
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