All right.

The time is now 10.02 a.m.

on Tuesday, February 17, 2026, and the Educational Opportunities Committee will now be called to order.

And I'll quickly please call the roll.

Councilmember Cor.

Councilmember McKee Rodriguez.

Councilmember Mungia.

Councilmember Castillo.

Here.

Council Chair Galvan.

Here.

Sir, we have a quorum.

Thank you so much.

All right.

First thing on the agenda is to uh approve the minutes from the last meeting.

Do we have a motion to approve?

Or any corrections to the minutes?

All right.

Any motions to?

All right.

All is in favor, please say aye.

Aye.

All is opposed.

Counselor Mungia.

And then second.

Yeah.

Any opposed?

Any abstentions?

Motion passes.

All right.

We have one item today compared to the last couple of minutes.

We have a bunch of them.

But I'm really excited for this one just because I know last time we talked a little bit about moving through the next different sections of education, but I wanted to make sure we had one more conversation about K 12 with the folks who provide K 12 every single day, right?

We have our own services here at our level that we kind of support.

But I want to get more info on just for all of us.

I think we all know a lot about it, but of course, for the public and for us to kind of make sure that we're aligning as much as possible with the ISDs about what things are going on in their world.

And so we have the wonderful Julia Grizzard here to present today about the overall state of K 12 education in Bear County.

And I'm so also recognized really quickly some folks in the audience.

We have Dr.

Jaime Aquino and Dr.

Kraft here from SISD and North Side SD respectfully respectively.

So they'll be here as well to share any comments and questions that we may have.

All right.

Take it away, Julia.

Do I push this?

Yes, I do.

Hello, everyone.

Thank you so much.

I got training on this.

Hey, I don't think I've ever had to raise a microphone before, but here we are.

A first time for everything.

Thank you all for taking the time today to learn about everybody's favorite topic, school finance and academic accountability, right?

Everybody's super excited.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Well, before we get started, just says as a as an FYI, in case you're not familiar with Bear County Education Coalition, we are a coalition of the area independent school districts.

Our focus is helping all of our ISDs with their uh legislative agendas, policy initiatives, and government relations services.

Part of that is elevating what's going on in our public schools, advocating on their behalf, and connecting them to uh similar districts, but also legislators that are concerned with particular policy initiatives.

Um I've made a couple of adjustments compared to the PowerPoint that you all received in advance.

Um just one of those um adjustments was including um an agenda.

Oh, this might be the not updated PowerPoint, but that's okay.

That's all right.

It was just a couple of um adjustments, and I'll talk I'll talk through them.

So the first thing is how schools are funded, and if you missed it, the dollar sign moved.

So that was really fun.

No, nobody?

Okay.

Um I have to make it entertaining in somehow some way.

So what I thought we'd do first is talk about school finance, talk about how um the history of school finance, where we are in terms of historical spending, um, talk some of the data um across the country um and how we compare to um our peers.

Um, but uh but wanting to make sure that you but that we center on you know that that really the state of public school finance uh today.

So um we're this is public school finance um 101.

Um there is no continuing education credit, um, but see me after class and maybe we can go through 201.

Um okay, so first things first.

Um I want to make sure that when we talk about something like the FSP, you all know what it stands for.

Foundation school program is our main source of funding, as you all know and have acknowledged the major source of funding for schools is from the state.

Um now it's primarily made up of uh state dollars and local dollars.

Um and starting in the 2026-2027 school year, it will be around six thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars per student.

Um that is what we call the basic allotment.

That is the starting amount for all of our students.

Now, as we get into calculating the entitlement, we'll talk about why you might have heard different numbers in some of the like media and ether about public school finance, but what is in statute, right?

What is in law decided by state educ or state legislators is six thousand one hundred and uh or six thousand two hundred and fifteen dollars.

So, how does the state allocate that money?

First of all, they did calculate the entitlement, um, and that's what we'll talk about on the next slide.

Second, is they apply the local share.

That is property taxes that your constituents probably talk to you quite a bit about, right?

That's the majority of property taxes go towards our public schools, but we apply that local share first.

So if we think about the entitlement as a bucket, right?

The size of the bucket is determined at the state.

The amount of water that goes into the bucket first is from our local property taxes, and then from our state aid.

Now, the entitlement actually does have some really great, great qualities.

We are actually highly rated in terms of equity in the nation.

We're not rated and well rated in terms of level of funding, but because we calculate based on certain student-based characteristics, we actually are somewhat highly rated on equity.

So we do, for example, if a student is an emerging bilingual student, if a student is viewed as at risk or educationally disadvantaged, if the student is in our special education programs, there is a slight adjustment or a bump to the amount of funding that that particular student receives.

We are also one of six states that fund based on attendance.

There are many different issues as we all saw during COVID, right?

We didn't have students in seats, so we had to calculate it in some other way.

But there also is some ableism, right, that is built into a system that bases funding whether students can show up in the classroom or not.

Now there are some adjustments with virtual, but we do think attendance, right, a major driver on the system is highly correlated to more at risk areas, especially areas of San Antonio.

So we want to just kind of keep that in mind.

We're gonna come back to student attendance.

And then after that, if, right, if there is any room left to be filled in the bucket, right, the metaphorical bucket, then that comes from the state uh share.

Umly that has to do with state sales tax, and that's where our lottery funds come.

It's a very minor percentage that is uh goes into the state aid.

The majority of that is state sales tax.

There has been a lot of conversation around actually removing property tax leadership, state leadership right now is actually bringing up for conversation during the legislative interim.

Is it possible for us to remove property taxes?

Um, as early estimates say that if we wanted to remove property taxes but keep school funding levels the same, we would need to increase our state sales tax by almost 30%.

So I would buy a car now.

Um, don't wait.

Um, if we do, right, increase sales tax by 30%, that makes a lot of everyday items, right?

Family needs cost prohibitive.

Um, and so hopefully we'll see over the next few months some of that conversation calm down.

Now, what has been happening with property taxes as a state?

Um, in the if you just looked at how public education uh finance had been working over the last couple of years, you might think that we don't have a very property wealthy state, but actually we're doing really well.

Um we have experienced strong growth as a state over the last 10 years, and we continue to beat initial estimates in the comptroller's office by how much our property taxes and property values increase year over year.

So you might be thinking, well, that's good news for districts, right?

Property taxes go up, and so therefore don't prop don't districts reap the benefit of it.

But if we go back to the bucket metaphor, the size of the bucket does not change just because there's more water going into it, right?

The size of the bucket does not change just because there's more water going into it.

The only thing that this increases is the local share.

Um, and that only decreases the amount that the state puts into the bucket.

In fact, um last session or the previous session before that, the state actually sent two billion dollars per year back to general revenue because property taxes had grown up across the state.

So we also might see some of the property tax rates lower as a result, but again, it keeps everything the same, that bucket the same over time.

Um, and so even as our our constituents, your residents, right, are maybe seeing their property tax bills say a school name and the amount, that amount does not necessarily reflect an additional increase to our school districts.

So how are we doing as a state?

Where does the investment stack up?

Just as an aside, we have some of our peers, Louisiana beats us by around $2,000, Missouri around $3,000, all the way up to the top where Vermont beats us by about $14,000 just in state funding alone.

So nationally, we're falling behind.

In fact, we are 43rd, depending on who you ask, but whoever you ask, we're always in the bottom 10.

I know people always debate about well, where did you get that piece of data?

Ask anybody.

We're always in the bottom quarter or the bottom 10, actually, in every data point.

Now you would think that maybe, okay, maybe the state is going through some revenue challenges.

Is there something else draining in the system?

What's going on for us as a state where we're not valuing public education, where we educate the majority, in fact, 98% of our state's children.

And that doesn't seem to be the case at all.

In fact, we've had record-breaking surpluses in the last two sessions.

Um alone, we had 33 billion dollars in 2023 and 24 billion dollars in 2025.

That's surplus.

That's in addition to the amount that is already going to our appropriated budget.

So that's on top of.

Yeah, COVID, right?

We had large shutdowns for the state of Texas, since we do fund on attendance, we actually had a great deal of our funding cut.

It didn't appear to that because Texas filled the gap with federal funding, but while the rest of the country was enjoying, or no, I wouldn't say enjoying, but the rest of the country was getting additional federal funds from ESSER two, that was actually filling a hole that the state created saying that we didn't have attendance in schools.

So we didn't see an increase in funding either.

And in fact, this last session, again, where we had uh billions of dollars in surplus um amounts, we saw an increase in the basic allotment of $55.

Now, by several different uh groups, depending on who you ask, if you had tracked the basic allotment to inflation started in 2019, the basic allotment should have increased around $12 to $1,500.

And that's a little different.

I'm no mathematician, but I think it's a little bit bigger than $55.

Um, and so we were not overly pleased with that level of support.

Um, if you have seen some newspaper headlines about, well, hey, I I thought there was some historic investment in public education this last legislative session, and you would be right.

$8.5 billion went into the system.

4.2 of that went directly to our teachers, which is wonderful.

Um our teachers deserve a pay raise.

However, school districts are just like our homes, just like our businesses.

We have experienced utility increase, insurance costs have doubled, sometimes tripled.

Um, we have nutritional service, bus drivers, and incredible staff that also deserve the kinds of increase that we saw across the board for our teachers.

And I I would value our teachers even deserved more than was included in the bill.

So it was historic, but the investment and where we need that investment to go into was not felt in the operations of our day-to-day uh public schools.

Now, you might say, okay, Julia, this is your chart, I don't know where this is from.

Fair.

Let's take a look at what the Texas Comptroller said over the last uh 10 years as well.

Um really the line I want you to pay attention to is the line with the dot with the diamond.

Here is where we hold the amount of funding for our schools constant when it comes to inflation.

And as we can see, while we did receive a substantive or a pretty substantial investment in after the 2019 session, that we saw that investment dramatically go down as a result of the intense inflation that we received, or that the country dealt with.

Let's say for whatever reason you're not sure about the Comptroller, actually the LBB, the legislative budget board, let's actually look at Texas education agencies, excuse me, Texas education agencies data, and it also tells a similar story.

The numbers are quite small, but if you look at the purplish line or the only line on the graph, that is the dollars held or adjusted for the Texas consumer price index.

And as we can see, if you go down into the chart, you can see that actually the amount per student, right, is still going down with the impacts of inflation.

Now, if we were here for another three hours to talk about all of the wonders of the Texas school finance system, we might get into something called the golden pennies.

And if you'd like to learn more about the golden pennies, which I know I can see in your faces, you're all anxious to learn about them, happy to meet any time.

But a second part, we've talked about maintenance and operation funding for the most part.

A second part of our funding has to do with facilities, but also what's called enrichment funding.

And enrichment funding, without going to the additional where it comes from or what it's based on, right, was intended to be utilized towards you guessed it, enrichment programs.

However, with the lack of additional funding from the state, we're seeing more and more enrichment fill the gaps.

And let me give you an example of a very large gap that Texas has experienced over the last several years.

And it is for our most vulnerable students population in the state of Texas, are students who are in special education.

If you were following public education about 10 years ago, you know that Texas was under federal investigation for limiting the amount of special education students in the school door.

In fact, our school districts were penalized if they were going above a particular percentage of special education on their campuses.

That percentage was 8.5%.

National average of students needing special education services is 11%.

That number is probably closer to 13% now.

So in addition to that really putting pressure on the system, we have a school funding or special education funding formula that underfunds our school districts based on what our school districts are federally required to do.

So the graph that you see in front of you, though yellow bars are what is required by federal special education law.

This is what our school districts have to and should, right, should implement for our most vulnerable children on our campuses.

And the blue bar is what Texas actually funds.

And so when you do see quote unquote enrichment funding or districts having additional uh resources, much of that is now going into a filling gaps like this, as well as transportation, which the state pays around 10 to 15%, as well as school safety, which by the way, our school districts spend about 100 per student or more.

We receive around, I think it's 20 now from the state.

And so we have significant amounts of gaps that we're filling with any additional funding that you're seeing in the system.

So now, again, without going into the specifics of how the formula works, but as many of you all know, I'm happy to talk about it anytime.

Let's look at school district budgets across the state to see how they've held up.

Here is what TEA reported on this last legislative session when it came to number of school districts reporting deficit funding.

So oftentimes we have in the again a more media space some conversations around oh, this district is this much behind, or 32 million dollars behind.

This is not unique to San Antonio.

This is a statewide systemic underfunding of our public schools, and here you see it in the numbers across the state of Texas.

And now, as we get into some questions around school closures and items that have happened across the region, we also don't often talk about facilities funding, it's just not a sexy thing to talk about when it comes to school finance.

We want to talk about books and what's going on in classrooms and teacher pay and completely agree.

However, in a historic city that has certain buildings that are actually older than the districts themselves, we do need to bring up the fact that in 1999, 91% of Texas students attended school districts that were eligible for instructional facilities allotment, that's an IFA, or the educational debt allotment that's the state support paying back school districts taking on larger projects.

As of the 2021-2022 school year, that number of students has declined to 16%.

In fact, the majority, I think almost all of our school districts in the area no longer qualify and also has not seen any additional funding into that fund since the 2017 school year.

So when we talk about the state of school finance, I know that there is not a year that public schools have said, oh yeah, we're good.

We are all good to go, right?

That is not something that we you know under know and understand as a society, we always have public schools in need of additional funding and additional support.

However, as you can see over the last couple of years, really the last decade, this has become more of a red alert for our public schools in terms of the state of support from the uh the state and from uh some of the additional funding that we're seeing in the system.

And I know that our families are feeling that you all are feeling that as you're going through a difficult budget season.

Um, but when we're talking about big projects, changes, things that are going on for school districts, this is the kind of these are the reasons that you're feeling that intensified, right, um, stress and capacity.

Um, our school districts have done more with less in the last couple of years than I've ever seen, and I've spent the last 20 years in similar roles around education and public school finance.

Um the last thing I'll say before I go on to school closures, and then I'll leave it to the chair if you want to take a break for questions, or I can go into school closures is that uh, you know, again, um while it seems like uh this is a matter of just budgeting correctly, um, as one superintendent said the the we're war down to the nub and the nubs all gone, and that's the most Texas phrase I've ever heard in my life.

Um, but that is the kind of issue that we're dealing with in public school finance.

Um, but again, if I I can go on or if you want me to take a break to talk more through questions.

Do my colleagues want to have any questions at this moment, or we want to keep going to the presentation.

We're all good to go.

Sweet.

I'm good, I'm good.

No, I'm I'm fine.

Um, okay, so let's talk about the impact and around school closures.

Um, I uh I've got a brief overview slide on um really the state of how many school closures we've seen over the last 10 plus years.

However, I would be remiss without citing and the the Express News recent report that they did on school closures and some of the background as to what they see going on across neighborhoods and how our families are dealing with it, and they actually have a really robust report and data set over which school districts were closed.

Um the charter schools, I do want to say I did include the charter schools as it was included in that data set.

That is not to uh you know, communicate a percentage, it's just how many charter schools, those are individual districts closed for different reasons, just like we see across our ISDs.

Um we actually also had Judson announced last night that they are closing one of their middle schools, so that was um in addition to the schools that are on this particular chart.

Now, because this data encapsulates the last 12 years, not all of these closures are related to funding.

Um, but what we've seen, or enrollment, I should say, some of them were academic reasons, but they were, I think, less than 1% of the number of districts that are on that list.

But what I'd like to do is talk about San Antonio ISD as a case study of how they have handled these closures and talk about the kinds of timeline input and community engagement that our superintendents and their teams are going through with their families as a way to make these decisions the best case in the worst scenario right for neighborhoods across San Antonio.

So San Antonio ISD, as you all know, have has gone through a couple of different phases and iterations of closures, and I and I uh asked Dr.

Aquino if I miss anything to come up and add anything, or if I say anything just to throw something in my general direction to make me to stop.

But I picked out a couple of slides to give you an example of some of the great work that they're doing within the district.

But I I do want to emphasize that part of their reasoning and part of their review that when they were evaluating their campuses, their second reason for determining which campuses would look or would go through a closer look was the cost per pupil.

There was a line, right, or a max amount or a median compared to other campuses.

And I don't think that this would be a same number if we were in Vermont, right?

That pays 24,000 per student, or Illinois, which is 20,000 per student, versus our Texas, which local state funding is around 10,000, 11,000 per student.

And so it has to be a part of the conversation.

In addition, yes, demographic or the uh demographers do tell us enrollment is going down, although they're saying it's kind of plateaued out.

Um we are dealing with housing stock and differences in in urban centers versus suburban outgrowth.

Um, but this is a definitely a part of this criteria.

I I would imagine that if we could afford to keep certain districts or certain campuses open and afford to do that both right in terms of cost of facility and cost of running the schools, that conversation would have been different.

But given the factors, right, um in the system, um, San Antonio ISD proceeded with what I think a lot of people hopefully will study in later years about being a really intentional and careful engagement with their community.

So they did write sizing with heart, um, and part of the repurposing and the um and the uh uh and going through this process was doing a ton of meetings.

Scheduling any meeting with Anna Alicia during this time was close to impossible because she was going a million miles a moment every single day, along with Dr.

Aquino, but it was over three months and 40 meetings, a ton of feedback from the community.

Um, one of the biggest pieces of feedback that I want to point out, and I do think that it's come up in this community or this committee a couple times about what's going on with the buildings, right?

What's happening with the buildings that are no longer being utilized as a school?

And you can see in this slide is one of the most important things from the community is to not sell the facilities, to find a way to repurpose the facilities to benefit the community around them.

So many of the neighbor, or so many of the communities say we are losing something that is a tremendous resource for us, right?

We serve around 95% of your families and right, your school-age children go through our ISDs.

And they are coming to our campuses on our property once a day.

We are talking to parents, we are talking to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and sisters.

And so part of losing those buildings is not just losing a school, but losing a neighborhood space.

Um, and so part of that came through a new community panel implementing their uh a community panel to determine what could happen right with the particular board.

So it was the facilities repurposing panel created in 2024, um, and anything that the superintendent, Dr.

Aquino did was done right with community engagement.

In addition, there was an outside organization helping them do a continued review through a grant with the San Antonio Board of Realtors, and in addition to going through all these meetings, creating this panel, having this robust evaluation, they also did an additional survey on how these facilities should be reimagined.

We saw, or they saw close to 9500 responses about what the families wanted to do with these particular buildings.

And on the next slide, you'll see the results that they received.

Um, a ton of great feedback, I think not only for the school district, but also for us as a community about the kinds of resources that our families want in their neighborhoods.

As you can see, we have a call out for early childhood for more green spaces for mental health, affordable housing and fine arts programs.

And so as San Antonio is going through now evaluating these facilities and evaluating the spaces and evaluating the RFPs, they are keeping all of these things, the community voice in mind.

And so I think it's uh really the way that they have really engaged, but part of that takes time, right?

Part of that community engagement takes time, as you all know so well.

Many of you all really had a lot of your start in community engagement and activism.

That really starts right with talking neighbor to neighbor about what their biggest uh priorities and concerns are.

But I will stop there.

I'm gonna go on to everybody's second favorite topic, maybe academic accountability.

No, all right, that's right.

Um I've got one taker.

But before I do that, um I I wanted to stop and see if Dr.

Aquino wanted to add anything and then of course open it up for questions.

Good morning, uh everyone.

Just want to add one point because we have changed in terms of perspective when Julia said that originally in all the community meet meetings, we said that we were not gonna sell any of our properties.

So now the board and I are considering some of those properties that we uh base on our landscape analysis, know that we might not use Eber asset as a school that we might sell them.

Originally we did not want to sell our property because if there's an enrollment growth in the future, SAISD would never be in position to purchase the land and build and build a school.

But we need to actually, we just have too many in our portfolio, and we don't have the resources or the funds for preventive maintenance for our buildings.

So we are thinking about selling some of those property that will give us a one-time funding that would help us with the facility facility maintenance.

So that's the reason why we are, in addition to that, we learned through the first RFP that the panel put to lease any of our buildings that many of the people who were interested, once they walked the build the buildings that oh my God, no, there's a lot of repairs that like this will be unless the district was going to do a bond for capital improvement, and we can't.

We can't do that because we have needs in our in our existing schools where students are attending.

So many of them are like, no, we're no interesting.

What tells you the infrastructure challenge that we have?

The average age of the buildings in SAIC is 68 years, uh, which is way above our surrounding uh district, and our buildings were built to last, schools were built to last 50 years, so we're over 18, 18 years, and we don't have any money for preventive maintenance.

The and I would say end by saying this no superintendent or principal for that matter should be in a position to be forced to decide whether I hire a librarian, offer support of mental health, or do preventive maintenance or increase.

But that's the position that we face on it on a daily basis.

And this is my fifth year of budget development that I'm uh going in for next year, and this is the first district I've served as deputy superintendent in four districts before coming here.

This is the four district that for five consecutive years I've had to cut and make cuts and cuts, which really hurt our students and our families.

Dr.

Aquino, I'm sorry, just before you sit down, sorry.

Uh just a quick question.

Um, do you have the average cost of what it would be to rehab a school or to do the preventive maintenance off the top of your head?

If not, we can get it later.

But to one of our empty buildings?

Correct.

It depends on the building and the building it itself, so each of them are different.

We actually have a facility conditional assessment, so we will we are able to tell you of the buildings would uh actually some of them said uh our architect and engineer have recommended that it will be cheaper to actually demolish and start from the ground up that it is to to renovate.

But yes, we can give you that number per schools, and it and it varies.

Some goes from 30 million to 60 million, so but it ranges.

Right.

Okay, thank you.

That's helpful.

Um with any questions from my colleagues while Dr.

Dino has the floor or any other questions on this topic at the moment.

Yeah, Dr.

Corey.

Just real quick, I don't know if you or Julia want to add a little bit about um the how you guys can try to increase local funding for your buildings, like what are the options that you have in terms of bond elections and in terms of um increasing the the tax dollar?

So the only for capital improvement uh is through bond through a bond election.

So the only for capital improvement uh is through bond through a bond election, actually, my board call for a blue ribbon uh task force that is analyzing as to whether we are going to go for a bond and what the package uh would look like, but I just want to be clear about one thing.

With the bond, it is only for capital improvement, not for preventive maintenance.

So right now, I will tell you our architects and engineer estimate that if we don't invest today in preventive maintenance in three years, the cost of the repair or building new building will be almost a billion dollars, like three quarter of a billion dollars because of the lack of preventive maintenance.

And there are other states that where I've worked where there's an allocation, there's an allocation separate from the basic allotment for actually facility facility maintenance.

Uh so yes, our only issue is going through a bond, but the bond does not allow us to do any preventive maintenance that comes from our general fund dollars, which means I'm taking those that money away from the classroom teacher salary and support in schools.

Any other questions from the committee?

Good.

Just one quick sec.

I know you mentioned just the golden penny a little bit.

Can you tell us which districts actually have and have been able to acquire that?

Yeah, so um all of our districts have uh both golden um and copper pennies.

Um it's a part of enrichment funding, not just for maintenance and operation, but also for instructional facilities.

Um it's one of uh it's actually one of the drivers of an equity in the system currently.

Um I won't go into copper pennies.

Um actually, sorry, I have to.

Copper pennies are held at a particular level by the state of Texas.

So based on property tax uh uh bills are our uh amounts.

So for example, if I have uh a hundred dollars worth of property um and that golden penny amount um is capped at 10 cents, right?

But I'm only bringing in eight, the state is responsible for the remaining two, right?

That's the copper penny.

If I'm only bringing in eight, the state is responsible for bringing in uh two.

Now, if I am a more wealthy area and I'm bringing in 15 cents, I actually have to send five cents back to the state, right?

What one recapture, right?

Robinhood is another way of saying that.

Although Robin Hood's not very uh justice-minded anymore because it just goes back to general revenue, it doesn't actually go to districts that need it after a court case in the early uh 2000s.

Um so that's a copper penny, it's held at a particular level.

The golden penny, however, while it is held at a level in order to get school districts to similar levels.

So let's say it's held at 30 cents, right?

And I as a district can bring in 18, right?

The school district, or the school district can bring in 18, the state is responsible for filling in the remaining 12 percent or 12 cents, right?

However, here's where um the inequity happens.

If I am a very wealthy district and I can bring in a dollar, I get to keep the whole dollar.

And so while districts can only bring in, right, up to whatever the amount is, we have districts that have very wealthy property value that are in oil-rich parts of West Texas that are have a variety, right, of reasons as to why they have high property value.

Um, they get to keep that difference.

Um, and so again, that's called the enrichment dollars.

It was originally meant to go into again enrichment programs.

Um, but because our base formula has created so many holes, uh, a lot of that enrichment formula is going back into filling those gaps.

Um, in fact, in a recent um study that we uh did as a part of the with the Texas uh um school special education administrators T case, that's not what it stands for, but it's school education administrators.

Um the vast majority of districts are actually spending their enrichment dollars on filling that special education um funding gap.

Um it's one major source um of stress, especially for our smaller school districts or more rural school districts, where if you have a student coming in that has a high level of need, right?

It could dramatically change your budget dollars and really for for larger school districts um as well.

Thank you for that, Julian.

Is that helpful with court?

And it requires voter.

Sorry, yes, to go out for um for more uh copper and golden pennies.

So each district has different um amounts that they can uh that they can take for or that they can uh use for their voters.

In 2019, um it was granted that that school districts could go out for additional golden pennies with the vote of a school board.

Um but yes, now if you want to go out for additional pennies, it does take what's called a voter approved tax ratification election.

So you'll hear the term Vader often.

So Dr.

Aquino mentioned the bond, bond, as he said, only goes to facilities.

You're seeing the Vader as a part of kind of the underlying maintenance and operation funding.

Did I get that?

In November.

And no, November only, yes.

Oh, and that's the other thing is that Vader, thank you, Dr.

Kraft.

Um, can only be um uh elected in November um Dr.

Kraft, is there anything that you wanted to add?

Just I know we were talking more about SASD's role with the community closures, but or the school closures, but is anything that you want to add on North Side's front?

Absolutely.

If you're gonna offer the mic, I'll take it.

Um, you know, first and foremost, thank you for engaging in this uh very important dialogue.

I want to compliment uh my colleague, uh Dr.

Aquino and Elise.

These are really difficult conversations.

In fact, um having been a superintendent going on 17 years, uh, don't tell anybody behind me.

Um I I don't know that there is a more difficult, challenging conversation to have with your community and and even your board.

Uh it takes a lot of courage, and I'll tell you that I think Dr.

Aquino has done a phenomenal job.

You know, it's impossible uh to please everyone.

Anytime you start talking about repurposing or particularly closing a campus to garner the efficiencies that he's described, um it's it's gut wrenching work.

Um and so again, I mean, I think y'all are doing a phenomenal job.

We're also engaging in these conversations.

The one thing about uh that I'll add um state law actually requires if uh the the district if the board uh elects or or declares property to be excess to the needs.

Uh those those properties actually have to first and foremost uh be offered uh for purchase to charter schools.

Um so that's just something also to kind of keep in mind.

Um this was legislated several sessions ago that that it makes it even more difficult, um, particularly if you've invested or the community has invested in capital improvement projects through bonds, uh, that you now have to really think well, do we turn this over?

Because it's not likely, even though we can talk market value and I'm not gonna really get into the details of real estate, um, but it's not likely that you're going to just reap the full cost in many cases of those renovations and and what the community has has approved.

Um we like say are engaging in what we're referring to as optimization.

Uh we're looking at programmatic and programmatic needs, potentially repurposing, particularly some of our smaller elementary campuses.

Um we now have uh seven that are hovering at or below three hundred students.

And so as you can imagine, when we look at efficiencies and particularly aging neighborhoods, aging facilities, uh, these are the conversations that we're also engaged in.

Uh also uh talking about the Vader very briefly, uh we're pretty in-depth in the conversation about yes, looking at lifecycle replacement and bond needs, but we're also looking at a three uh cent uh golden penny vader in November.

Um now we're working to try to maintain a flat tax rate so that the our community and homeowners don't see an increase in the total tax rate.

Um, but this is challenging in the in the Vader, just to uh put it in dollars and cents for each golden penny, like I say, which we have uh the ability to ask the community for approval of three, uh each golden penny would garner about 15 million dollars, uh which is a maximum state yield as a result.

Uh beyond that, as Julia already articulated, uh we don't see as great a state uh yield.

Um and so you have to really ask yourself is it fair to try to increase taxes on your community when you don't you don't realize the full maximum yield um of state funding?

So I know that was a lot, um, but again, thank you for the opportunity to engage in these conversations.

Thank you, Dr.

Kraft.

All right.

Any other questions before we move on to accountability?

All right, Julia?

Okay, let me take one spot.

Take the water with you when you go sit down.

That's a pro tip.

Um, I just also wanted to apologize.

The the PowerPoint completely my fault.

So thank you so much for switching it.

Um I apologize again, that was some wonderful technical um uh collaboration, so I really appreciate you all.

Um I uh I think um Alex and Roger are just never gonna invite me back.

There's like get out of here with your changes, lady.

Okay.

So um so let's talk about how how schools are graded.

And this is not because I want you to take a nap.

It is because I think that in some of the conversations around school closures and around data, we've had some reports that have been put out into the community about we didn't have any data for two years, or school districts were afraid of A through F.

There's been some conversation around a different views of uh the state of reading and math for our students.

And let me be clear, I think that uh the uh two um superintendents behind me can agree we have a lot of work to do, right?

We have a lot of work to do in our spaces, but our current accountability system, while we do want to be our school districts do want to be held accountable, um, the way that our schools are graded do not reflect the kind of amazing work, right, that's going on in our school districts.

Um, I also want to say that in terms of comparing San Antonio to Dallas, um, I think you all know really better than anybody the kinds of poverty and deep poverty that a lot of our residents experience.

Um, and it is uh a different kind, right, um, than we see in different areas of the state.

So um I'm gonna very, very high level it, I promise.

Um, but at its very base level, there are three elements in our school finance system.

School, our student achievement, what a student um gets at the end of a school year, student progress, um, which ideally you would want from the beginning to the end of the school year, but our current school progress is year over year, not pre to post, right?

So it's year over year, and sometimes even larger gaps than that can exist.

And then 30% of what's called closing the gaps.

Um and closing the gaps is a collection of a lot of different data points based on student demographics.

Are we doing right by our most vulnerable students on our campuses?

Um, starting in uh 2021, 20 no, 2019, um, we switched to officially switched to an A through F system.

Um we are one of I think eight states that do an A through F system.

Um, there is a lot of data on the psychological impact on campuses of an A through F system and what grades communicate to the public versus the students that attend that particular campus.

Um, I highly recommend um uh going into depth on some of that.

Happy to share resources.

Um, but um again, we have the system, so our our districts will continue to do um the best by our students.

Now, what is the system made up of?

And this is my um uh my you'll see my love of PowerPoint animation come out in this presentation, but here we have it, it's base level for our elementary and our middle school students, um, right?

Um, really starting in third grade, right, is the first year that those students are officially state tested to our eighth graders.

A hundred percent of the scores for elementary school students for middle school students is based on one test on one test day.

Let me just I just want us to sit with that for a second.

All the things, if you have children in public schools, well, yes, they're probably talking about the star test of the day they took the star test, but the majority of things you're hearing about at our public schools are probably not testing.

Probably like I don't want to do testing, but you're hearing about peers, you're hearing about their teachers, you're hearing about their counselors, you're hearing about their programs, but we currently evaluate our elementary and our middle school students in schools by one test on one test day.

Now, for our high school students, we do consider other elements.

I'll talk about those in just a second.

Um, but all together, in terms of the uh the scores, here is what the calculation for that A through F looks like.

Either you can do the achievement score or the progress score.

You all everybody has to do the closing the gap score that's related to a federal rule, and that um pops out your A through F score.

Now, that's from over 6,000 data cells, by the way.

This is making it seem very simple, but our accountability and testing people are just Excel whizzes in order for our school districts to even close to estimate how uh TEA is going to grade um school districts.

Again, it's around 6,000 data cells that have to be calculated because of different demographics, different grade levels, how they're weighting things for closing the gaps, who counts, who doesn't count.

See me after class for that interesting tidbit.

How I do want to point out for achievement, we also have what's called dead data or lagging data as well.

So we're using star scores from that year, from that particular school year, and college career military readiness.

That's what that CCMR stands for.

College career military readiness scores from the prior year.

So those students have taken those tests, they've graduated, they've moved on, hopefully to a wonderful college or post-secondary program, or whatever makes them happy in life.

And grad scores from also the prior year, right?

Okay, now just as an aside, many of you all have asked me and superintendents about ways to help when it comes to accountability.

What are ways that we can lean in?

I do think that this is a great example in the high school realm of where we see ready to work and a lot of other partnerships and supporting those partnerships between Alamo colleges as well as our college partners and a lot of programs going on across the state and the region are very, very helpful to our districts, and we continue to appreciate those partnerships.

So just as an aside before we move away from student achievement.

Now, as we have heard, or if you've read articles about accountability, you said these data points have been missing for two years.

So why have they been missing?

Why did our many of our school districts, some of them from this region decide to sue the state to say, hey, hold on a second, that's not the best way to calculate that data, or we think that you have actually broken the law in terms of timing.

Um, I like to compare this, and this was stolen from a superintendent who used this example, as how we calculate our taxes.

We are all familiar with our taxes and calculating our taxes or handing an accountant to say, please do the thing.

Um, but the idea is those taxes are based on, right, a tax code that is established.

We establish the code, the rule book, right?

We go through the tax year, the accountant or the person utilizes that established rule book, and then the payment or the refund is determined by that established code, right?

Many people compare this to a sports metaphor.

I didn't want to try to attempt that, um, but I can, right?

Rule book, played the game, right?

And then we evaluate what the score is.

Here's what happened to our school districts in 2023 and why we saw this lag and why we continue to not want to emphasize our A through F scores, even though we do want to be held accountable, but we want to tell you, and what we want to have a lot of schools doing community-based accountability instead.

So here's what happened.

In 2022, we had senior take their assessments and graduated, right?

They're gone.

Congratulations, clapping, promenade, et cetera, right?

They're they're off in to their world.

We then go through the 2022, 2023 school year.

Um, in March of that school year, students take the star assessment.

That is a third, eighth, right?

We've got our high school students taking some of their end of course exams.

We then only then do we get a copy of the rule book.

So May of 2023, we get a copy of the rule book that would have applied or that does apply to the seniors in May of 2022.

And by the way, that rule book was not finalized at that time.

That was a preliminary rule book, so at that point we didn't even have cut scores because cut scores were being raised across the board.

So we didn't have cut scores as of May 2023.

We do have a finalized accountability manual as of September 2023, and then we see star scores, right, preliminarily released in September 2023, again, utilizing data from seniors who have since left, right?

They've since left, they're gone.

And so, in addition to some of those changes for dead data, we see in this new rule book after the players have left the field, right?

After we've spent the money or the investments with the tax metaphor, we see cut points moving from 60% to 88%.

And we're fine with raising the bar, but we'd like to raise the bar for the students that we are currently serving, right?

Cut points were raised across the subjects, and we also see career and technical education that CTE requirements increased.

So the assessments had been taken, but the rules were finalized a year later.

Here's what we see in the data.

This is from Commit out of Dallas.

They have a robust data set.

They have extended a lot of their data availability to across the state.

It's a great resource, but they are Dallas-based nonprofit.

They have a lot of great data sets that focus on Dallas education and opportunity index specifically as an aside.

But as you can see here, I've focused on some of the districts from really within the 410 loop.

We have districts, if you're just looking at this as a general impression, and I know the kind of colors blend together, we see some pretty, you know, again, it's nothing to like, you know, throw a parade, but I think, especially coming out of that significant dip out of COVID, to see this kind of increase for our students is something that we we should be highlighting, right?

This is what we're looking at average all subjects all grades.

So you lose some detail and average all subjects all grades, you lose some detail in A through F, but that's another conversation, right?

So here's what we see in individual districts.

Now, when we look at those district scores, um, oh, I've increased it for you in the magic of PowerPoint animation.

Um now here's what we look at when when it looks through A through F.

Does that tell you right really anything about what's going on in terms of the health of our districts?

Where we have many districts uh improving pretty markedly, and if you look in again, I highly recommend going on to their data table, and you can go into each individual grade, um, you can go into different subjects, you can go into different campuses, but you see some pretty significant jumps, yet the grades not moving.

In fact, um, for one of our districts, East Central improved pretty significantly, and they remained at a C the entire time.

Um, so there was some movement around, but this does not really fully give you a sense of what's going on inside our classrooms.

What I highly recommend is continuing to, I know many of you all attended our last school tour.

Um, there are community-based accountability metrics.

Um, there are going to be more qualitative data continue to be included on Texasschools.gov, but many of our school districts continue to engage with our parents in our community about what's important to their parents in their community and report out to them individually.

Okay, from my last session section, rather, um, I really just wanted to talk about a general discussion point about how we think San Antonio could provide, and I should say could continue to provide.

You all do so much or do a lot for our school districts now, um continuing to partner with us and support, especially the folks in this room that do amazing back to school events and continue to engage with our um our school campuses.

So I thought I'd start just at least a discussion in some of the things that I've heard from working with the superintendents about where maybe there are some stressors.

So before we do that, um, I I wanted to be a teacher, but I realize I have no patience and I hate getting up early.

So I take it out on you all in my presentation.

So I'll do a quick exercise.

I want you to take 10 seconds just to write down your thoughts.

An audience, you're not immune, just take down 10 seconds, write down your thoughts.

What are you thinking about?

What's going on in your head?

10 seconds is also a very long time.

It's very awkward, but it's important.

Okay, that's 10 seconds.

Now, I I have no ego attached to this, but how many of you all wrote down Julia's really the the greatest presenter?

Right?

Did you write down anything about school finance?

No, how many people wrote about that they were hungry, right?

Or that they had they wanted to remember an errand that they had to run, or something that happened this morning, right?

And this is even though we tend to parse out adult learners and student learners, we are all learners and we learn in very similar ways.

And so if you all took an education class in college or uh since then, or learned about MASL's hierarchy of needs, so much of what we see outside the classroom impacts inside the classroom, right?

Our brains are going on no matter what.

Now, in order to really internalize what your wonderful presenter is saying, you all had to feel comfortable in your space in this room in order to internalize even parts of that.

And so when we have students who are going through significant bouts of trauma, we're dealing, we're seeing significant increases of food insecurity.

We have actually teachers who are not housing secure right now because of the level of support for our teachers.

So to come and show up in a classroom and actualize learning, right, takes a lot of these very essential steps that you all have robust programs that are already addressing and that can continue to address and really equitably address our school age children and our teachers specifically.

In addition to that and thinking through how we support the community in order for our students to show up ready to learn during the school day, there also are some additional just things to think about.

So fee waivers, there are sets of fees right now that our school districts are being charged.

I I believe most of them or many of them are, to join SAPD's radio frequencies, and also, and this is everybody is missing personnel.

This is not a slide against SAPD or any of our Bear County, everybody is missing personnel.

But in the question of how do we support school district budgets within a city capacity, can we talk about where some of these fees and responsibilities overlap?

And there are incidents where we do have, for example, Harlandale PD is doing overnight patrols and patrolling the neighborhood.

Oftentimes in their communication with SAPD as I understand it, they say, hey, you've got that, and I get that, right?

That's efficiency in terms of police patrol.

But can we look at how we work together and efficiently spend some of those safety resources in order to at least maybe even temporarily give students or give our school districts some of those some of that funding back instead of sending it to the city?

Again, a humble suggestion, a way to start some of the conversation.

The other thing that we see is back to school events, while they are amazing and help so so many students, they are largely council dependent.

But if we looked at ways to make that kind of support systemic and intentional and equitable across the city, we could look to see where our greatest needs are in terms of school supplies, in terms of support for our classrooms, especially as our teachers are still bringing in all of these wonderful extras for their classrooms, largely on their own dime.

There are, I'll put on the next slide some uh research around how community support and community engagement can impact attendance pretty significantly.

But in that infrastructure conversation, and thank you to Dr.

Core for really engaging in some of the safe pathways projects and starting to pilot some of that out, and and the interest from the committee on how we expand that across the city.

Um, are we making sure that all of our pathways to school districts are safe and well lit?

Um, as a reminder, many of our school students show up early because breakfast is the only oftentimes the only food that they're getting during the day.

So they're showing up oftentimes when it is dark outside still, or they're staying after school and they're going home when it might be dark out, depending on the time change.

Um so do we have well-lit paths that are on quality sidewalks?

Um the wonderful thing about San Antonio is you all have incredible amounts of data, as we've learned, um, where we can start to say, okay, if I have some sidewalk budget, can I focus and be intentional about the sidewalk specifically around our school districts?

And the last thing, but probably one of the most closest to my heart is around advocacy.

As I've talked about, the majority of our funds for our school districts are a state responsibility, but advocacy can be a community responsibility.

Um, it meant so much to our uh to our teachers and our administrators with councilwoman Castillo came up not just last session but the session before to speak about the impact of vouchers.

Many of you all have also spent time in Austin and advocated on our public schools' behalf.

Um, that presence in the Capitol as we are continuing to be underfunded and continuing to have unfunded mandates, of which we had many put upon us this last session, does mean a significant amount.

Oftentimes we look at the political outlook and say, should we do it?

But it's really about the community and the community support that that could offer.

And so, as you all are building your 90th legislative agenda, we have been wonderful partners with you all in building that legislative agenda, but this committee could be really essential in ensuring that education funding becomes a part of a priority for the community.

Now, again, sidewalks are not the most fun thing to talk about, but in a state that still funds based on attendance, you all could have a pretty significant impact on our funding.

So I did want to include funding levels and also share that each percentage point improvement equates to about 380 million in additional funding statewide.

I think each percentage for San Antonio is about a million.

3.1, just kidding, I was off.

$3.1 million for our San Antonio San Antonio ISD and an increase in uh uh attendance.

I've included some resources, not only about um community input and quality of facilities, but also some of the new research that's coming out around poverty and brain development and some of the negative impacts on children's behavior and their ability to actualize in the classroom.

Um if you go into some of these resources, there's good news here in that there is some stark improvement that many communities are seeing when it comes to investing in things like head start, um domestic violence prevention um uh campaigns, which you all continue to invest in.

Um there are uh, of course, additional support for young families and early childhood.

So there are ways that you all can continue to invest and have a pretty significant impact in the classroom.

And we don't want to undercut the amount that can be impactful when it comes to school facilities.

Um I do I have a video, I'm not gonna share the video today, I will send it to you all after the fact.

Um, but there is a growing um also organization here in San Antonio called School Connect.

Um started in Arizona, and uh thanks to their love your school day, um, that they um uh went to one particular campus that was really suffering um from a high amount of teacher uh attrition um as well as uh scores that continue to have them in state jeopardy.

Um, after Love Your School Day, after repeated years of Love Your School Day, including cleaning up litter a litter, uh graffiti um painting, right?

Sidewalks and making sure that there are safe pathways to school, uh the schools showed market improvement, um, somewhat similar um teachers and leadership over that same time as well.

Um, with that, um, I'm happy to address um any questions, but again, just wanted to thank you all for spending your time um on these topics and happy to continue to be a resource um as you continue to learn about all things public education.

Thank you so much, Julia.

Um, I know it's a long presentation for everybody, and we have a couple of quick things you wanted to add.

I know Alex is gonna jump in, but I wanted to just you know make sure we're on the same page, of course.

There's a lot of things that public schools need.

We all know that.

I think this committee really knows that.

Um, and so just always thinking about what ways that our city can provide recommendations to our council to institutionalize and formalize any kind of funding recommendations, any kind of programmatic adjustments that we have at the city level is the big focus for what we can talk about, or what we'll talk about today, but also anything else you all have in mind.

But go ahead, Alex.

Thank you, Chair.

And I I know the slide numbers might have changed a little bit, but I wanted to provide um a little bit of context around one of the slides that reference the current stressors that um schools are experiencing.

So we actually have Craig Hopkins, our chief information officer and chief Bobby Blanton from SAPD that can share some clarity regarding um the public safety radio system and our patrol functions, and I just wanted them to provide the committee some of that context right now as y'all are gonna start discussing this as well.

Chief and I were dancing who was gonna go first, so that's great.

Um my name is Craig Hopkins, I'm the chief information officer for the city of San Antonio.

Uh, and that first bullet under fee waivers, we saw the item about SAPD requires schools to buy into radio frequencies on specific radio equipment.

Uh the IT shop is actually responsible for the radio system.

That's why I'm here talking to you today.

And uh both the city, county, and uh CPS Energy are co-owners of what we call ours, the radio system today.

A couple things I just wanted to clarify.

Um is that there is a $22 fee per radio per month for anybody who uh attaches onto the radio system.

Uh, that is uh we call that our tenant fee for anybody who uses our system.

It's a 27-tower system that we've spent about 85 million dollars building.

We spend about um almost 2 million dollars a year to maintain, and so the maintenance uh the 22 dollar fee is used to cover the maintenance of the system for those who use it.

Um the other thing I wanted to point out is um that to be on the system, the radios do require a minimum specification.

They have to be a certain type of radio, but we don't specify the radio itself.

This is technical uh term, but it needs to be a P25 phase two, 800 megahertz radio.

That's the minimum requirement in order to work on the system, but we don't say you have to buy the same radio that SAPD uses or anybody else as long as it meets that minimum requirement.

Um so the discretion of the tenant, any tenant can come in with a radio that meets that requirement.

And then the last thing I just wanted to point out is there is the ability to uh communicate directly with SAPD on the system, and that's part of the value of this is the interoperability across agencies.

Uh but in order to do so, you also have to be encrypted.

So it's an extra requirement we do for those tenants who want to communicate directly with PD.

So I just want to specify a few of those things that are around that and open any questions if anything comes back.

Bobby, you want to do the second one?

Thank you.

Committee, uh Robert Lenton, assistant chief SAPD.

I'll add some context to the uh operational aspects of the coordination and cooperation between SAPD and our local uh school district police departments.

Um we have a great uh robust relationship with those departments.

Um we work together, we we train, we've um had facilities lent by school districts so we can do um sort of the unfortunate reality of of critical response training related to you know certain events.

Um we also have some programs that we developed through our community engagement, like Handle with Care that seeks to uh notify the uh students' respective school of any trauma that they've maybe experienced that SAPD is aware of, and so the school district can when they return look to provide wellness uh support or or understand why they may be behaving differently.

Um same thing with success through respect.

Um that's a program we have that uh with the adolescent age kids seeks to um kind of create positive relationships between law enforcement and students as they as they grow.

Um same with uh serious crimes that maybe happen uh within the school district's jurisdiction, we'll provide investigative support, um, evidentiary processing, anything that they may need that maybe they don't have the resources to accomplish.

And also with our fusion center and our mental health unit, um, we do some threat analysis to look for potential threats that may be out there in social media or other um areas, and we'll coordinate and assist with uh investigations related to school threats and stuff like that.

Um and I'll speak on this just briefly as it relates to kind of the patrol aspect, and if I say anything incorrect, please correct me.

Um but I think there was some additional mandates uh placed on school districts by the state in recent uh legislation related to campus safety um after the Uvalda incident.

And so I don't think any of the school district represented here today, but there were some school districts that notified us that because of those mandates, they needed to shift some of their law enforcement um resources to cover uh schools and or I believe extracurricular activities as well.

Um, and so we now then absorb they they move some of their overnight patrol presence to the day to or the when those uh activities occur, and so now we'll take over responding to the schools at night if there's burglar alarms or any public safety issue or concern.

And um as remit remiss, I forgot one thing too, that uh central safe officers um organize an inaugural 5K and uh thank you, Councilwoman Castillo for recognizing those guys.

They did a great job, and and uh the proceeds benefited um some students and teachers there in SAISD.

So there is a strong relationship.

We support each other just like we do any other um police department.

So uh yeah, we we uh we do take on some responsibilities when when the school districts aren't available, and um and I think their primary focus is camp campus safety and for their students and and uh teachers employees.

Thank you.

All right, thank you, Chief Lanton and Greg, really appreciate that.

Um sorry the council conversation, I know Council Castillo move first.

Thank you, Chair.

Um uh Craig, thank you, Chief Lynn as well.

And Craig, I had a question regarding uh the SAPD requiring schools to buy into the radio frequencies.

Uh can you uh reseat the component about CPS energy?

They helped uh pay for the construction.

So uh the system was built with three partners county, city, and CPS energy.

We're the we're the owners of the system, if you want to think of it that way.

And right now there's uh other police departments as well as school districts and other agencies can be tenants on the system as the owners.

And would your department happen to have a breakdown in terms of costs associated by ISD and how much each is um paying for the utilization of the radio frequencies?

Right.

So we we know the monthly costs for every tenant, which is the $22 per radio per month, depending on how many radios they access the system.

So do we know based off of ICs how many radios and what the cost is associated with?

We know every radio on the system and everybody's just attached.

Can you share what that total cost is with us uh it offline if you have it?

Uh I'm curious if there would be opportunity to work with CPS Energy, uh, maybe in terms of the costs associated for the independent school districts.

Um, but first I want to understand like what is the total cost based off of how many radios each school district has.

So the answer is yes, but part of our budgeting process as well, that is revenue into the city on the on the system that covers the expenses we have, so that's part of our budget cycle.

Yes.

Okay, I appreciate that information.

Thank you, Craig.

And are we getting to a general conversation?

Great.

Um, just wanted to thank uh Julia, uh, Dr.

Kraft and Dr.

Aquino for your leadership during these turbulent times.

Uh, as I'm hearing the conversations about school closures and uh the disrepair of specific buildings, right?

I think about um public housing, right?

And what we've seen all throughout uh the country is just much of our public housing stock and disrepair.

Uh and then oftentimes what we see is the demolition of the structures and then it's turned into a public-private partnership or completely private.

Uh and ultimately it's not because of the housing authority or the independent school district.

It has a lot to do with the state and federal, federal uh restrictions and funding mechanisms.

Um but as I've mentioned, right?

These are very tough conversations to navigate, and I've valued uh the ways in which uh both of you all have navigated these conversations.

Unfortunately, I always share that four out of the five independent school districts in district five have voted uh to close schools within our community.

And you know, when Julia gave us our exercise about, you know, to write what you're thinking about, I I jotted down just uh interviews, uh incarceration, and poverty, right?

Because oftentimes when the score grades the scores come out rather, um we always get reached out for interviews, and district five makes up for the large amount of failed schools.

And the question always says is why do you believe that is?

Uh and when I highlight, okay, what show me the poorest census tracks, right?

And you often see based off of that what the score levels uh are for each school and school district.

So um, you know, to Julia's point, we know oftentimes standardized testing isn't an appropriate is not an appropriate measurement of student creativity, um, social skills, so on and so forth.

Um, but ultimately, as laid out in terms of the current stressors, I think that's something these are many of items that we can continue to work around, um, particularly around the legislative agenda as council gets briefing on what the city's priorities are and council priorities.

I think uh chair, I I think it's important we have a conversation and bring back uh the superintendents and Julia to share what are those legislative priorities and how can we go advocate alongside you all and also make our rounds with uh our state legislators.

Uh in terms of infrastructure, uh this is something that I'd like to continue to work with our school board members and our school districts, um, particularly around the intersection with school closures.

For example, there's one school we just put a new infrastructure flashing beacon, and it's a school set to be closed.

Uh and I'm asking public works, like you know, if kids are not going to be picked up from there after closure, how can we move that infrastructure to another school because it's very expensive, and of course the the safety component uh is what's uh most important.

Um, you know, uh again going back to the conversation about school closures, um as uh you all have mentioned in terms of efficiencies.

Uh my main concern and what I had jotted down, and uh I I understand charter schools have the right of first refusal.

Uh but have y'all's legal teams uh explored uh what a potential covenant could look like in terms of if the property is not sold to a charter school, um a nonprofit purchases it, however, the nonprofit can no longer contribute towards maintenance, so they have to put it back on the market.

Uh if you all could consider a covenant that it not then be sold to a charter school.

Uh so I that's something that I'm hopeful that y'all could explore, because that's one of the concerns that we have in our community uh and a question that we often have.

Uh but for the most part, just really grateful for y'all's work and leadership of y'all's um respective school boards.

Um I know in district five you all have uh y'all's work cut out for you all.

Um but I look forward to collaborating in how we can continue to improve uh the quality of life for our families, whether it's workforce training, uh ensuring that we're providing second chances for uh many of our students who have incarcerated parents, that's why they're living with their grandparents, um, and just overall improving the quality of life for constituencies.

This is a a lot to cover, a lot to do, um, but I'm here to support you all in that mission.

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Catherine Castillo.

Consider Mughe.

Thank you, Julia.

That was uh a great presentation.

I was like, wow, that's a lot of great information that we we need to know about.

And I want to thank the superintendents for taking time out of their busy schedule to be here and and help us understand some things, which I think is very important.

So I'll share what I was thinking too when Julia had us do that exercise.

I put down just the great need of the districts in consideration with the lack of fundering funding, especially with how wealthy this state is.

That's all money that people have already paid into the system.

It's just sitting there doing nothing.

And yet we have schools that need help, we have students that need uh assistance.

We have um underfunding for special needs children.

And so I think it's a real shame that the state keeps that and doesn't distribute that when it's already paid for.

So that's certainly gonna be, I think, a top priority for the city when we go to the state ledge again.

And it's a bipartisan issue, right?

But it's it's kind of like how do we do that?

And Julia, I'm not sure.

Can you you've been at the state ledge many, many times, many sessions?

What are some you know, reluctance?

What's the reluctance on the state on the part of the state to increase the the per pupil uh allotment or from the funding?

Great question.

Um really two things that are stressors on the system.

Um is uh there is a policy direction that we see that um instead of giving districts local control over how they spend their dollars, um current policymakers are attaching dollars to very specific programs.

Um and in fact, we went through uh this last uh legislative session and putting together House Bill, um, which was the 8.5 billion dollar, and we kept pointing out hey, we're missing these individuals in pay, or we're missing support for our you know maintenance and operation.

And so the only way that we saw adjustment um and acknowledgement um of that need were through additional added allotments.

So that's the direction that we see um go happening at the state is that very particular programs are being funded.

One of those, as an example, is the teacher incentive allotment.

Um Northside is just about to implement San Antonio is one of the first to implement that uh pays teachers based on uh a variety of things the district points out.

Now, statewide that program makes up, I want to say like five to eight percent of teachers.

It's a it's about ten percent, it's less than ten as across the state.

Um it is growing exponentially because oftentimes it's it's a way to get your teachers to a six-figure salary.

Um however, um it's a smaller percentage of teachers overall.

That program was given three billion additional dollars, right?

And so that's a particular program that was given those dollars attached to a particular program, but not given to all districts or increase the basic allotment.

So we see a lot of that very specific funnels into very particular programs.

Um the staff retention allotment, for example, which is another thing when we said, hey, we need to pay our bus drivers, we need to pay nutritional services, counselors, librarians.

Um, they said, okay, well, we'll do a staff retention allotment.

That staff retention allotment worked out to be about 45 increase in salaries.

That's what they put in.

So we've satisfied that, checked, right?

But it wasn't the amount of funding that is reflective of the current environment.

So that's one.

The second thing is is um we have uh there are uh particular uh uh stats um that are shared uh uh often um at the state level.

Um one of them that makes the rounds um pretty regularly is school districts are at an all-time um high.

We've given school districts an incredible increase in funding, they're at $15,000 per student, right?

Um the uh oftentimes we'll see a slide that'll have a pie chart and you'll say 15,000, all the arrows are going up.

Like we've increased all of the things.

But if you're a if you're an elected official and you have to look at that, you as you all know, you have to do so much in a day.

You're looking at that screen, you're saying, okay, 15,000, all the arrows are going up.

But it's great news.

We're doing great, right?

You're trusting that the the appearance of that.

But if you look in the data and what is reported in that 15,000, it includes teacher retirement payments.

It includes the Texas education agency operating budget, it includes federal funding, which is since expired.

Um, it includes the cost of special programs or in special schools like schools for the deaf, um, uh the our JJAP centers, all of these are are worthy, of course, programs to fund, but it's not reflective of what we have going on in our our neighborhood school districts.

That is said to be closer to the 10,800, that number that I shared earlier, right?

Which the basic allotment plus additional entitlements.

But again, when you're an elected official and you're not familiar, right, with school finance, you don't want to go in depth into you know how school finance works, you're you're looking at that SAT and taking it at face value, and it looks like we're continuing to get more dollars.

Part of that continuing to get more dollars also has to do with the large property tax breaks that we've received as a state, right?

So last session um there was an $18 billion property tax uh break bills, what it says largest property tax break that we've seen in the state of Texas.

Well, where is the largest amount of of uh dollars in the system from property taxes?

It's in education.

So how do you displace $18 billion of individuals' property tax?

Go back to that metaphor of the bucket, right?

You as a state are the state, not you, but the state, right, puts more water in.

When it when you look at the formula, that looks like the state is putting more money into education, but it's not actually changing the size of that bucket, right?

It's just putting more water inside.

So there are those factors that makes it seem like, hey, we're doing fine, right?

Um, but I think the important thing and why this conversation, why this committee is so critical, is because what we see is when we have community leaders that are closer to our school districts that understand what's going on in our classrooms, they know that that's not the reality, right?

You know, as a former school board member, you know and seeing that firsthand, right?

And that's how you get past the averages, right?

Are the large pie charts that have all the arrows?

You get to what is actually going on in our neighborhood schools.

And I I did want to just um share the the fee waivers, just an idea of like a here's a thing that I continue to hear about um from our districts of like, well, here are things that we have to pay in.

Um, and here's what you know, here's what comes up when we have those conversations.

I hope that answered your question.

Yes, thank you very much.

Yeah, and there's uh I'm joined by another full school board member here too.

So this is kind of where we end up, I guess, right, after we do that.

Yeah.

Um but uh but no, that was very informative.

I appreciate that.

And yeah, when I was at uh when I first got to city council as an intern and a staffer, um South Sound was actually going through their school closures, and I would probably would imagine they were one of the first the few first districts in in the area to start mass closures.

Uh and it was a very devastating conversation for the community.

I'd not seen engagement like that since.

Um it was very difficult.

And I appreciate what SISD, you you've kind of gone through that.

Do you have a better plan of action?

You know, back then they were consultants and suits, and they were saying, you know, based on these numbers, we need to close these many schools.

And you know, these schools are so historic to the community.

Um they're places uh the people go to, uh, especially when they don't feel connected to the city, you know, that the school district is their is their home and it's an employer to so many people in that area.

So it's very, very sensitive discussion.

I know that those conversations are ongoing.

We saw Judson last night in a very tumultuous board meeting talk about that.

Um and so I know it's not gonna stop, but we have to have a really better conversation with the community when these things come up.

And also in advance, right?

I think it it's it's fair for school district to say, you know, if if we don't get this radar that we're looking for, this tax increase, you know, these things are on the chopping block and be very transparent with the public that if we don't pay more locally, uh, we will see more closures happen.

Yeah, and I and I think you're you you know, and I can't speak for every individual district and and the kinds of communication that they're doing, especially South Sand, um, which was uh several years back.

Um but what I can can say is there are limits during that camp, you know, campaign, I want to put in air quotes about really what our districts can do.

And especially in the last few years, we've had um legal questions brought up quite often about what our what our districts are stepping in and out of in terms of when it comes to talking about a bond or a Vader.

Um and so that is really we've seen that's another example of potential community, you know, community resource inequity, right?

Which communities have uh the the dollars and the families to create, often which often they do, packs, right, run by parent or community organizers.

Um and so, and which ones have parents who have three jobs, right, or two jobs, and just want to make sure that their kids' school is doing really well.

Um, and so that's another stress in the situation of uh and the and the symptoms of if we are going out there with certain tactics to say, if you don't vote, yes, right, here's what happened.

But that's not something our school districts can say.

Right, as you know, I know you that you know that.

As you know, and I know you that you know that I think that's a part of the issue that we've had often in having these delicate conversations about a wide variety of decisions as to why uh certain campuses have to close.

Yeah, when we I when I was in school, we tried to do that at South Santa and we had to have a campaign separate, right?

And and school board members helped put money into that because we couldn't fundraise well, uh, and we still lost because you know, everybody worked, and people who didn't or were very retired were uh campaigning against it heavily, right?

So we lost that election.

Um but I think you're you have a really good point about um the city supporting where we can around folks.

Uh you know, Councilman Gavon and I went to John Jay with there was a horrible tragedy, and we are working together to get money to put a hawk crossing there.

Um working with South Sand to relocate a Hawk Crossing that was next to the former hospital, which is closed now, closer to their entrance on bar lights, so that's more you know, where kids are crossing.

So I think you know, we we try our best in those situations, and I will say thankfully now the school district budgets are more top of mind at the city when we do things, right?

I know it was a huge discussion with the election change.

I understand that.

Uh, we're also, and I mentioned it then, we're also gonna talk about SALS and CPS rate increases, right?

And that affects you all.

Uh so I'll be looking to you all also to get some response uh about what the proposed rates increased and how that will affect your bottom line, because I want the rest of my colleagues to understand that as well when if if they support that, that that's a real issue with that.

So and I'd be happy to talk about our history of talking with our CPS and our SAS colleagues often when those rate changes come up.

Um we often work with um our chambers, but also directly with those agencies to really talk about the timing and the impact on our school districts.

So we are often engaged in those conversations, but would love additional help on what the impact is to school districts.

Sure, yeah.

And I just want to say I love my districts that are in D4.

So I've got Northside, I went to Valley High Elementary.

I talked to the school board member a lot, so Mr.

Salcido, and talk about how we can help.

Uh love Southwest, South Sand's always near and dear to my heart.

And we I am trying to make conscious efforts to work with these districts in a positive way that lets folks know it's good to invest there, it's good to send your kids here.

There's positive things happening, so we try to uplift our districts wherever we can.

And so I just want to thank you for your work and the councilman for putting this on the agenda.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilman.

Thank you so much, Chair.

Thank you for agendizing this discussion, and thank you to Julia and superintendents and all of the community members that are here.

This is such an important discussion.

Many of you all know.

I talk about this a lot, but it's actually why I ran to be on council.

And I, if you also know me, someone the other day was like, wow, you really do just bleed kids.

Like, yes, that's uh that's the wrong phrase, like bleed public ad.

Like, I really care.

I really care.

And it and sometimes there's confusion about what I really care about because of my background and the support that I've provided for schools.

But at the end of the day, the thing that we know is if our kids are not given a proper public school education, which is the thing that our country was founded upon, we will not have a democratic electorate that is enable able to engage in electing us as officials.

That is the foundation of our country, and we are failing.

And uh you you said write down what you were, and I just write down, I wrote down annoyed.

And it was and it's hard not to be, right?

Because it's a chicken and egg situation, and council member Mughea said, like, what's what are they saying, right?

And folks are saying, oh, well, our public schools are failing, so we're gonna not fund them.

But we've talked about this.

We had a greater SATX presentation last week, and we're looking at the metrics of our city, and the thing that we saw was the things we have invested in, we see growth.

We've invested in multifamily affordable housing through our housing bond last time, and we've seen growth in that area.

We're investing in jobs coming here, and so we're seeing growth.

But the things we are not investing in, we're not seeing growth.

What a shocker.

And I I also know I've done research on finance, and a lot of people will say increasing public school finance doesn't change results.

And that is true in areas where we have seen that it doesn't always.

But the reason why is it because it goes down to things like this, right?

You can see that there is an increase in funding overall, and yet the the folks that really need it, the things that really need additional support, special education or lowest income school districts, aren't seeing that benefit.

And so it's easy to trick the numbers to say, are we um putting more dollars in?

But is it actually affecting the things that matter most?

Um so I'll just start with like overall accountability.

The first year I was a teacher, I was so excited.

I was like, I'm gonna create a learn to love to read book club in my classroom.

I was teaching ESL.

Most of my students were English as second language, like me.

And so I was like, we've got to learn to like this is gonna be exciting.

Like took all the books out and handed me this, like basically star, and at that time it wasn't even star, but the test prep book, and was like, this is how you're gonna teach.

You're gonna teach main idea, um, you're gonna teach plot, and just basically that's it.

And it was depressing.

She's like, after March the fourth or whatever the date was, then you can switch to teach whatever you want to teach.

And that is like the culture that the accountability is created.

But I've also been super torn about this.

Like I spent a couple years of my life looking through very deep details of accountability in our community.

And it's challenging when no child left behind was created.

We wanted to make sure that our schools and our kids were getting what they needed.

But what we created was a system that doesn't tell us if kids are able to read and critically think or be creative, like you mentioned.

What we created was a system that just blames adults in a building.

And when I went to go visit Edgewood, y'all know I spent a lot of time in Edgewood, and I was visiting a school there because I was working with the principal and wanted to help empower them at the principal level to make those decisions that Superintendent Akinai mentioned, Aquino mentioned about how to use resources and dollars.

And I walked through classrooms and I was like, the teachers in this, the students in the rooms were engaged, the teachers were using high quality curricula, the principals were tracking data and giving feedback in the moment, like all the right things that we know from a pedagogy perspective, and that school, according to our A through F system, had been failing for five years.

And so then we think like, is this the right system?

Or if we had taken all these kids and put them in a more affluent area, or sorry, if we take all the teachers and put them in a more affluent area and swap those teachers, would this school all of a sudden be an A?

And it's not because we've tried it.

I actually invested in it.

We put millions of dollars into a turnaround effort at two schools in SAISD on the west side, and it didn't, it even if we flipped all the educators in the building, gave them all this training, the results of that school didn't change.

So if we could simply just change the adults in a building, this would have been uh we would have fixed public ed a long time ago.

It is a completely systemic issue, and the system is broken at all levels.

And that's kind of why I'm just annoyed.

Because sometimes when you're in our seat, you're feeling like, how do we really make an impact?

So all of that to say on the school finance piece, it's so real.

And I also wanted to my colleagues commended both superintendents.

I know you guys are going through a really tough time, but also I know um the Edgewood ISD superintendent who's not here, they went they had to close schools too.

And when we look at the finances, the challenging part is is that we know learning environments for our buildings weren't built for innovative or unique learning environments for kids.

So when we try to implement schools like that, which some have the opportunity to attend to, it doesn't always fit with a school building that's meant to serve six to eight hundred kids.

And so a lot of times what gets affected is those small schools that are great for some kids, but it just doesn't make the numbers work.

Edgewood also adapted a deficit budget, and I tried to work with like I when we're working through the school budgets and finance, the unfund unfunded mandates are the hardest part.

Like, why does every elementary school need an officer?

That's a huge cost.

IT costs are so significant.

Anyways, I'm ranting a little bit, but um finance, school finance is what it is, and 100% like thank you, Councilman for Casier for going up.

I would love to go up next time and advocate too, because that's where the real change needs to happen.

Um, and unfortunately, it it is about elected and how we are elected into the roles that we are and what we truly um truly value and care about as a community.

Um, but I as far as like this, I'd like for you just to talk about like, okay, so the other thing I was taught in my first year of teaching was you're not gonna be able to solve everything, so work on your locus stuff control.

What's in your what's in your uh ability to do in your position right now and how can you affect that?

So I'm done my rant about the state, and I want to focus on this slide.

So can you just Julia talk a little bit about the first?

I know uh thank you, Craig and Ostrablen for coming to speak about the fee waivers component, but can you just share any other light that you have that the impact?

And I'd also like to um I know Councilman Castillo asked for the total cost, that would be helpful, but yeah, absolutely.

Um, and I uh the the pay into it, that was um uh very uh uh appreciated in terms of the and also the specific radio equipment.

I probably should have said the level of radio equipment.

Um the um legislation um that assist chief mentioned was House Bill three from last session, requiring every single campus to have an armed personnel on campus.

Um certain districts um are asked for a waiver based on you know cost of personnel, um, how they're dividing up their um security officers.

Um we do have uh districts who have officers who have say two elementary schools that are right next to each other according to the law, they should have two officers, but again, the waivers said listen, we have these schools covered, um so we don't have one body at every single campus, but we have coverage.

Um but based on that, as the assistant chief mentioned, we they've had to shift um the how their personnel is distributed throughout the district.

Um the cost of increasing for those additional security officers was pretty significant.

Um, and so previous we have had uh uh uh ISD PDs patrol again the entire area, and they still do, um, and oftentimes they were patrolling at night, um especially in uh neighborhoods that had repeated um incidents of complaint.

And please correct me if I've saying anything incorrect.

Um, and so in looking at how uh the district is spending security funding on particular items, um, one of the comments from our district or from some of our uh our members was um can we work with PD to say, hey, can they step in and do the night patrols?

Can we share that information with them to do the night patrols to save some additional dollars?

So our point here is can we at least have a conversation about some of those shared costs?

Um are there other opportunities for us to look at points in the system given where we are as public education, even if it was temporary, or even if the state would say or the state, excuse me, even if the city wanted to say help subsidize or something along those lines, those are real dollars that go directly back into the classroom or can go back into our safety budget to offset against the gap that we have from the state that we don't receive through the school safety allotment.

Um the other thing that I didn't mention on the slide that I think is really important.

I'm excited for your next meeting because I am a data nerd, um, but data is really huge for our school districts and really just access to some of these community resources.

How are, for example, the sidewalk project, right?

What do the sidewalks look like around all of our campuses?

Where are the upcoming projects?

So our superintendents and our our facility managers know where, hey, this sidewalk is going to be fixed in the next six months.

Let's let our folks know about it.

And oftentimes neighborhood associations, as a former neighborhood association president, right?

You're communicating with your safe officer and you're making communications with your school district, and you all are all doing that communication.

But maybe if there was a proactive right set of data to help with some of that communication, that could save our folks a lot of time.

Um they're also, I think, um, because of again, uh, and I I make no secret that school districts, I I love you guys, but you you're you're kind of sometimes hard to work with.

Um purposefully, right?

Purposely.

That's not I I say that in a joking manner, but they're protecting our children, right?

And that that's okay, that's on purpose, and that's what they should be doing.

But I do think data, right?

Helping, where are you guys investing in particular programs, helps our school districts say, hey, can I connect with my council person to do a similar event?

Or can I connect with this nonprofit that is a delegate agency that's doing this after school program?

Can we replicate it here in our neighborhood?

So some of that proactive work that helps our school districts as their parent engagement officers, um, their external communication, right, are investing in ways to have more of an impact on their families.

Data is a really powerful tool for a lot of our folks, especially as a central office and a lot of our administrator and offices are being cut.

Um, that is often the first time we see that school districts have to eliminate particular positions.

So we have a lot of um uh folks in central office and administrative positions taking on a multitude of roles and hats.

So any way to make some of that analysis easier um really can save us a lot of uh time and money.

Um I'll say it two things and then I'll stop.

Um the I commit to exploring the ISDPD partnership piece of public safety so we could bring that back and look at what the costs are for that and see how um if there's a way we can partner on that.

Um we can agendize that and we'll try to do for the March, if not March, April meeting, so we have some data for that.

Um I I think Craig's gonna get us some detail on the first bullet there to see what the costs are and how we can potentially support for the infrastructure you all know.

You said sidewalks aren't exciting.

Sidewalks are so exciting to me, but um we we y'all you obviously know about the project that we've been working off the last couple years, and uh once it's ready, we'd like to show it to the committee.

Once it's ready, we'd like to show it to the committee.

I also I just found out about this, so just wanted to quickly say you talked about data, and we talked to actually Maria Vargas at in the integrated public safety department at the city, and she has a whole team of data scientists, and I had absolutely no idea.

So she they have defended, they have developed a um draft dashboard that has all these community metrics, and what we've asked for them is to say, can you add a point on there to show all of our schools and use the metrics rather than zip code to show it based on schools?

So whether it's a quarter mile or half mile radius around the schools, so we can see the impact by schools.

So and they have in things on there like um Australian loose dogs, which I have seen in specific schools are a bigger challenge.

They have things on obviously they have some infrastructure, they have health uh metrics on there too.

So I think if we could bring that together, and then the thing that we we have also been talking about is like now that we know this data, so what?

So the thing that I think we have to figure out is like how do we show the investment that we're making on top of that?

Because what we saw was with some of the Dallas work is that if you just show where all the problems are, it feels very deficit-based.

And so we have to figure out how we add in a layer on this of this is what we're investing in, this is how much we're putting in ACS in this area, this is how much we're putting in infrastructure on this area.

And I'm really hopeful that if we show that in time for the bond, that we can direct some of our bond funding in and around our schools.

Like, how cool would it be to say we are focused on this area for our bond funding, and it's all of the issues that are affecting JT Brack uh elementary school, which we know is in one of the poorest areas of our town.

Um, and so that it's not just an overlay of poverty, but it's also an overlay of investment.

So I can't wait to for that.

Thanks, Chair.

Thank you, Councilmember.

Um I don't think I have anything too different from what uh my colleagues have said.

The only thing I wanted to ask, well, supportive of bold cuts over everyone's requests.

I'll just say that.

It's what everyone's requests here.

Um I did want to ask um a question to Julia.

Well, the the folks who presented today, uh, Julia and the superintendents, what is the communication between ISEs and the city like, whether it's on I know, of course, we have a communication on public or general big safety events like the freeze, of course, we have communication on that recently, but also more so in depth about um any kind of city programming or the data components, right?

What does that look like in the past?

What does it look like now?

What things what's the state of that?

Yeah, so um seeing as I'm in a city room, I will do this diplomatic.

No, I'm I uh um we're asking for the real keep it 100.

Okay, yeah, I'll keep it 100.

Um that's what the that's my son says.

Um, no, he doesn't he doesn't say that, and he would be very embarrassed.

But so um I will start in the past um where um actually one of the major reasons um that uh BCEC formed was to help with communication as a region.

Um I will say we get a lot of jokes about how many school districts do we have, so many school districts.

You guys have 10 times as many neighborhood associations, and as a former president, I got plenty of communication.

You all found my cell phone number just fine.

Um, and so I do think for communication and having elected officials that are closer to what's going on in our school board members in classrooms is actually quite beneficial, and that shows out in the data.

So um uh we started um in uh March of 2020.

Um, we were set to um announce that, and then COVID happened.

Um, the way that our school districts um found out that school districts were on the accepted list was through a press release.

Um, the way that we found out that the school district later was suing the state, or excuse me, that the city was suing the state was through a press release.

Since then, the city of San Antonio, you all have improved markedly in terms of communication and collaboration with us, and we've been really appreciative of that because I think coming from those moments where we've had to kind of pivot and react very quickly.

Um, we know that um you all are investing in really proactive programs and proactive communication, and any way that we can continue to facilitate that um the better.

The fact that this committee is here and exists, and these conversations are popping up is a testament to that.

Um, that that question came up, right?

And we really appreciate that continued conversation about how we become uh more proactive communicators.

Part of that is also data, um, right for you all.

You do you all have make sure you have all of the superintendent's cell phone numbers and that you're able to get a hold of us if you need particular pieces of data or information, um, how do you find that, right?

School finance, as we can see, is not easy, but if you have a question about what the level of investment is, you have a little pocket nerd that you can just kind of call on.

I'm happy to facilitate any of that data or connect you with a person who can get you that level of information.

Um, but I do think part of having that um live right source of data about ways that we are overlapping would be essential to improving that communication.

Um, because I do think right now uh in a very San Antonio and from San Antonio fashion, it's um it is communicating often in silos, um, and all with the best and most wonderful intentions.

And so having a central place for us to look and review at what the current state is, I think would help with a lot of that future communication as to how we continue to both work on behalf of all families in San Antonio.

Thank you for that.

That's really helpful.

I mean, I think we're already hitting on these.

We hit these uh other presentations too.

I would talk about communication on programming for the parks, communication programming for human services, communication programming for health departments, and there's already that communication there in a lot of our schools, and understanding a bit more of you know, is it capacity for our own programming that we can't reach other places?

Is it communication?

Is it both?

Understanding that I think from our for the city side would be helpful, uh, just so that we know where we're really pushing that point about here's the impact that we're making.

That we can't make unless we do this kind of funding at our level or on the other level, whichever way it needs to go, um, I think it's helpful.

I think the same is true for even um urban development, right?

We talk about permitting, we talk about bond investments, we talk about uh I don't know how much it would go with zoning, but even potentially that, right?

Talking about what was that communication like already with the school districts would be important to understand.

I know North ISD, we talk a lot in the North Southeast Academy about um some of the new growing areas, right?

That we kind of work together, or the school district works together um with the city a little bit on that.

I kind of tracking permitting things like that, but are there ways we can be more proactive, are those that can communicate those needs a bit better?

Um kind of ideally overlaying kind of investments there would be would be ideal.

Uh but so understanding what the barriers are there, if it's person-to-person communication, if it's digital communication, if it's just a dashboard of some kind, whatever the needs are, I think would be helpful for us to understand as you go through what I hope will be an April conversation, uh, because I think it'd be fun to make a fiesta at the end, but that's besides the point.

Um, but a kind of a conversation here um with partners involved either at the same table or with input provided beforehand to kind of figure out what things are we going to recommend to our our shared council body, um, or even just what things can we can we tinker with a little bit more versus presentation style, a bit more hands-on activity in some form to figure out what can we do on zoning, what can we do on affordable housing, what is this committee's recommendation to adjust to then impact education opportunities directly.

Um we'll have those conversations uh individually as well about what do you all want to see from that.

But those are all my comments.

Any other last things from the committee?

Go ahead, Councilor Castillo, and then Counselor Core, maybe if you'd like to.

Thank you, Chair.

I wanted to vote upon the point uh that you brought up in terms of development.

Uh for example, uh myself and Councilwoman Via Garan met with uh Mr.

Sothel of uh Harland OISD to talk about the ways in which the city can uh help facilitate uh multifamily development around specific elementary schools, uh, because enrollment like you all is a concern, uh, but pointing us to parcels and or uh ISD property where there could be opportunity for multifamily or mixed use development, uh, I think is something of value, and I think a conversation that we could continue to have, whether it's relating to some of the schools set to be sold and or closed, uh, or if are there parcels or commercial spaces around some of your schools where you think it's right for multifamily development?

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Council Record.

That's a great point.

And one thing I'll add, I'm just gonna throw this out.

I've been thinking about this, it's kind of a crazy idea.

But if you all for that April conversation since we're talking about how we could really be helpful.

One thing I know, at least from my um work with Edgewood, is that bus drivers and getting transportation is really difficult for the school districts.

So, what would it look like for us to have like a citywide transportation system that you could buy services from, and whether something like that would actually even be helpful for the superintendents?

If y'all want to, you can really quickly answer or you can bring that back in.

Yes, that would be helpful.

Um to elaborate a little bit.

I we we've had conversations about, you know, what would the partnership, particularly with like via look like um, particularly with some of our uh areas that the students may live within the walk out range.

Um because there are obviously some safety concerns.

Um I think that you know what one of the challenges that we've encountered are just the logistics and how do you attain those efficiencies and and almost in a guaranteed ridership, um, which I completely understand.

We work really hard from a routing standpoint to make sure we're not driving empty buses throughout communities.

So that's that's just a logistical uh challenge.

Um but yes, I think absolutely, I think that that is a very warranted conversation uh that would hopefully benefit all entities involved.

And I I I would add to that having been a choice district and we provide transportation, it is very expensive.

So because we have to do budget cuts, it's hard to take service that the people are expecting, but it's is becoming really very, very difficult to continue being a choice district if we have to provide transportation in terms of of your question about communication.

I will tell you having work in four different cities, it's my fifth city.

Uh I individually, I've never seen a city council so involved individually.

As a body at the city, you know, I don't I don't see that like I'm telling you I learned things that the city was considering on the express news, and I get caught from my board, like has the city talked to you?

Like, no, so it puts me in very challenging uh sit situation in in terms of um of that, and I will tell you to be honest, I was my kids are your kids.

They're not just mine, they're your kids, and a city is as good as its public schools.

When we had the HBA collapse, I was expecting at least the city to pick up the phone and and tell me we have some HBAC technicians like my colleagues, uh the other superintendents did, because I was in a crisis and I didn't have and even if you didn't have just the reach out because it was our kids who spent three days at home.

It was our parents who couldn't go who couldn't go to work.

So that's something that I'm asking as a body, how can we have better uh better communication?

And councilman core, when you describe when you went to visit the school of what you saw, and it doesn't reflect it in the accountability system.

And I had when I was in New York City, I supervised the wealthiest um schools, public school in the nation and the upper east side, but also supervise the poorest uh uh public schools in the nation in South Bronx, one of the poorest county in the nation.

And I could tell you, I used to tell the staff at the Upper East Side, you know, you're just getting the results because of your population, because I've seen better teaching in the South Bronx.

And like you said, if I move them, will we will we get the the results?

And I'm really big on accountability, but on an intelligent accountability system, which is not what which is not what we have when our elementary elementary we just was one test and the kids can feel bad.

And I'll leave you with this.

And I have one of my principal of Sam Houston High School, the East I was she transformed, and she tells the story about how she had to attend many funerals of students and former students, but for the first time two years ago, she was actually asked to speak in the funeral.

And she tells the story that she's talking and she's looking at the coffin.

This kid was uh killed because of gun violence, and she's thinking that I as your principal do everything possible to prevent you to be laying in that coffin today.

And probably the answer was not enough, but not because she didn't have the skills or the will, but but because of the limited resources that we find ourselves, and no principal should be in that piece.

We and the last point on the accountability system, last year we prevented four attempts of suicide in our campuses.

Four.

The youngest was an eight-year-old boy.

And one of the middle school rated F.

You asked the mother, what does she think about the school?

She said, an A plus.

And I care about students being able to read mathematician, critical thinkers, scientists or musicians, but we first need them to be alive.

But we first need them to be alive.

So that's the issues that we are facing.

And it is the future of our kids.

And I don't think our children are doing well, unfortunately.

And we ask for your continuous support in making sure that our all of our kids have the opportunity to sit around this table and be you or better than us.

Thank you.

Thank you so much, Dr.

Kino.

On that note, I think we'll wrap the committee.