May 20, 2024 at 7:00 PM - Regular Meeting

Description:  Announcement by the Board President whether a quorum is present and that notice of the meeting has been posted in accordance with the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code Chapter 551 as required by law.

Description:  "I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

Description:   "Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible." 

Description:  FISD Teacher of the Month - Andrew Pence FES
From his nomination: Mr Pence has taken the lead with planning reading instruction in 4th grade. He has also worked to lead a PLC team to vertically align our strategy and practices for teaching "Constructed Response". Mr. Pence assists the campus as part of the Threat Assessment Team and is part of the Campus Safety Committee. He devotes 1 to 2 afternoons a week to mentoring and tutoring kids.   Above all, he reads aloud daily to his students and instills a love for reading as he shares literature from his favorite authors and genres.  Mr Pence previously failed retirement, in that he returned to teaching because of his passion for kids.  His commitment to kids goes beyond a daily "job". 
 

Description:  The Board encourages comments about the district from members of the public.  Anyone who has signed up to speak in advance of the meeting in accordance with the Board procedures may do so at this time.  The Board asks that each participant's comments pertain to district business and be no longer than 5 minutes.  For any member of the public who is accompanied by a translator, your time will be doubled as required by law.  Remember that the Board may not discuss or act upon any issues that are not posted on our agenda.  In addition, the Board has adopted policies to provide prompt and equitable resolution of complaints and concerns for employees, students or their parents, and the general public.  Copies of our district policies and procedures on public comments and filing complaints are available on the district website. 

Description:  Dr. Porterfield will provide an overview of the graduation ceremony.

Description:  TASB adopts their Advocacy Resolutions every two years. Mr. Navarette and Mr. Earp participated in the Grassroots Advocacy meeting with TASB in Austin on January 10, 2024. Now the Board of Trustees can submit resolutions or priorities to be considered at the TASB Delegate Assembly in September. Proposals for Resolutions are due by June 15. Attached are the resolutions recommended by our administration for discussion.

Description:  Mr. Banfield has been working to determine our expected budget deficit for the 2024-2025 school year. This will be the first opportunity for the Board of Trustees to see the expected budget.

Description:  FISD is pleased to announce that our Intruder Detection Audits conducted per state law had no findings. Congratulations to our campus administrators and maintenance staff for the clean report.

Description:  Angel and Kim will provide an overview of the ACE program.

Description:  Auditor will audit the financial statements of the governmental activities, the business-type activities, each major fund, and the aggregate remaining fund information, including the disclosures, which collectively comprise the basic financial statements of Florence ISD as of the year ended August 31, 2024. Standards provide for certain required supplementary information (RSI), such as management’s discussion and analysis (MD&A), to supplement Florence ISD's basic financial statements. Auditor is also engaged to report on supplementary information other than RSI that accompanies Florence ISD's financial statements, such as the Schedule of Expenditures of Federal Awards (SEFA) and required TEA Schedules.

Description:  After discussion above, the final list of recommended advocacy resolutions will be considered for approval.

Description:  Based on the data study provided by TASB HR Services, all pay group benchmarks are near or below target market medians. Teacher benchmark years have improved since last year, but there are still benchmarks that fall far below the market median. The proposed pay plan includes teacher pay equity adjustments and strategic adjustments to help remedy this issue. The total expected cost for the raise is $200,361.00. This information is outlined in Model 1 of the TASB Pay Systems Maintenance document attached.

Description:  As you will recall, the Board approved raising the district contribution toward health insurance premiums last year from $376.00 to $395.00 per month to match the monthly cost for premiums. This year, TRS-ActiveCare Primary again jumped in cost to $445.00 per month. In order to ensure our staff does not incur this cost increase, the District recommends increasing the district contribution to $445.00.

Description:  The TASB Delegate Assembly is held in conjunction with the txEDCON24 Convention and will be held on Saturday, September 28, 2024, at the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio. Each District Board may nominate one delegate and one alternate delegate to the Assembly. 

Description:  Districts or campuses can request a waiver to excuse any instructional days from ADA and FSP funding calculations that have attendance at least 10 percentage points below the last school year's overall average attendance, for the district or applicable campus, due to inclement weather, health, or safety-related issues. On April 9, FISD had a late start due to an electricity outage impacting the City of Florence and our campuses. On that day, the average daily attendance (ADA) for the district was 79.97. The average daily attendance (ADA) for FISD for the 23-24 school year was 90.501%. Because of the difference between the 23-24 school year ADA and the ADA on April 9, FISD qualifies for the waiver. The waiver, once approved, will apply the ADA from last year to April 9. While this is lower than our current ADA, it does provide some financial relief for that day.
 

Description:  Proclamation 2024 calls for the adoption of instructional materials for Technology Applications. Learning.com is on the list of approved programs through Texas Resource Review since it covers 100% of the TEKS.  Florence ISD previously adopted Learning.com for technology applications, and we recommend continuing to use this instructional material/platform.

Description:  Chris Beliveau, math teacher at FHS, submitted his retirement letter on  April 5, 2024, effective at the end of the current school year. Since then, he has decided that he wants to stay at FHS. Board Policy DFE (LOCAL) states, "Once submitted and accepted, the resignation of a contract employee may not be withdrawn without consent of the Board." Mr. Beliveau requests that his resignation be withdrawn so he can continue to teach at FHS. If approved, he will be offered a contract for next school year.

Description:  The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is requiring the District to cover the cost for the redesign of Business 195 from Main Street to State Highway 138. TxDOT has indicated to Langan that the cost to the district for the construction work will be capped by the amount of money set aside in the GMP ($1.055,000.00). I have asked Langan to speak with TxDOT to determine if these engineering cost will be included in the money set aside in the GMP or if it is an additional requirement. I hope to have an answer by Monday evening. The total base cost is $232,000.00 with an additional task cost of $35,000.00 if required. I am asking for approval of the entire amount of $267,000.00 so we don't have to come back to the board for a change if the additional tasks are required by TxDOT.

Description:  In order to be compliant with Texas Administrative Code Chapter 61, the district will be adding and/or replacing fencing that does not meet the requirements. Funds will be provided through the SAFE Grant from the Texas Education Agency to cover these expenses. A Request for Proposals was issued and was due today. A hard copy of the selected proposal will be provided to the board at the meeting for approval. 

Description:  Using funds from the 2022 bond, the district will purchase and install weight equipment for the weight room in the new field house. BSN is a BuyBoard member Contract #665-22. BuyBoard Quote #11436257 for a total of $150,049.14. 

Description:  Furniture for the new field house is covered in this quote. South Texas School Furniture is BuyBoard member Contract #667-22. The Quote number is Q-24-6713 for $125,537.95.

Description:  Furniture for the new band hall is covered in this quote. South Texas School Furniture is a BuyBoard member Contract #667-22. The Quote number is Q-24-6713 for $46,846.25.

Description:  The State legislation that funded the new $100,000 Homestead Exemption adjusted tax collections for homeowners who had their property taxes frozen before the annual tax rate compression began.  This results in lower property taxes for those homeowners and fewer tax collections for the District. The State is making hold-harmless payments to Districts to replace the lost collections. One E-Rate funded project for the summer requires funding prior to any reimbursement is received for the project.  This is for a District network firewall.  

Description:  Addresses District Goal 1, 2, 3