Board Notes: November 1, 2022

Workshop Items

Discussion of Denton Central Appraisal District Vision
Don Spencer,  interim chief appraiser of the Denton County Appraisal District (DCAD), outlined the budget request for the current year. Established in 1982, Denton Central Appraisal District is a political subdivision of the State of Texas for the purpose of discovering and appraising property for ad valorem tax purposes for each local taxing unit within the boundaries of the district. It is not affiliated with Denton County or the Denton County Tax Office.

DCAD is responsible for appraising real property and assessing taxes on behalf of multiple organizations in Denton County. Their 2023 Budget includes the request for additional staff to process new home values and homestead exemptions.

The DCAD request to increase its budget for more appraisers would give each appraiser less parcels to appraise and decreases the chance for errors as well as less protests per appraiser. Having more Appraisal Review Board members will provide less wait time for taxpayers and a timely certification. DCAD is budgeting for 17 new residential appraisers and customer service specialists which helps increase capacity and productivity. DCAD will also leverage technology to offset personnel cost.

“When we do our growth reports and there's a column that shows vacant developed lots and it’s about 27,000 lots, if that’s Hunter or Cole Ranch then those lots used to be two homeowners or two land owners that turns into 27,000 when those developments come online” said Dr. Jamie Wilson. “The growth of our community, people moving into our community changes hundred acre sites, two-hundred acre sites, thousand acre sites into four-thousand individual vacant developed lots that individual owners own meaning this is a massive undertaking that I don’t know that everyone truly connects the growth in residential properties and where we have been in the last fifteen years in the eastern section of our district. There is a connection to all of that and things we’re looking at all the time here in our district.”

Discussion of Elementary School Planning with Pfluger Architects
Susannah O’Bara, Asst. Superintendent, Terry Hoyle, CEO Pfluger and Casey Myra, Pfluger Architect presented the next generation of elementary school design process. Pfluger along with staff from Curriculum and Instruction, Academic Programs and Principals worked on what they felt the future of education should look and feel like. Some of the guiding principles were:

    • 1. Create active, flexible, inclusive learning experiences and make learning fun.
    • 2. Provide open spaces so that learning is visible everywhere but limit disruption to others.
    • 3. Integrate environmental safety levels into the design.
    • 4. Ensure that equitable resources are provided to all students and staff.
    • 5. Aesthetics should be geared toward the specific needs /wants /wishes of the community.
    • 6. Provide opportunities for students to facilitate their own learning and allow them to have their own choices.

The design concept would be having a central ‘hub” to include dinning, outdoor learning and media center with classrooms on the outside edges and the specialty classes such as science, maker space, music and art would be sprinkled with the hub area. The new design would be a 2-story building to lessen the exterior entry points into the building. 

Discussion of Attendance Boundary Modifications - Cheek Middle School
Dr. Jeff Russell, Area Superintendent provided the Board of Trustees with an overview of the proposed attendance boundary modifications Rodriguez Middle School and Navo Middle School which will also establish the boundary modification for the new Cheek Middle School to open for the 2023-2024 school year. During recent attendance boundary discussions, the District explored the impact of future developments on the enrollment at Cheek Middle School. These future developments would have a significant impact to enrollment capacity at Rodriguez Middle

School and Navo Middle School and making these boundary adjustments now would provide the greatest campus size efficiency for a longer period of time for all three middle schools.

Report Items

2022-2023 Attendance Report - Period 1
Tony Volner, senior architect EIS, provided the Board with an update on the Average Daily Attendance  summary report for reporting period one. The purpose of this report is to provide the Board of Trustees with a summary of Denton ISD’s ADA and Reporting period 1 update, for the 2022–2023 school year and to compare this data to previous years. The objective is to closely monitor the ADA and overall attendance at each Denton ISD campus and to provide support and resources where needed.

2022-2023 Medical Benefits Transition Update
Chris Bomberger, executive director of child nutrition and benefits, provided the Board with an update on employee benefits since the district moved away from TRS Active-Care. The presentation included an overview of employee participation that occurred during open enrollment for 2022- 2023 benefits and provide a timeline for the 2023-2024 plan year.

Denton ISD has 5,066 eligible employees selecting medical and non-medical plan options.

 

Intruder Detection Audit Report Update
Dr. Jamie Wilson Jeff Russell provided the Board with an update on the intruder detection audit report by the state. Every district has to be covered by Christmas and every campus in the state needs to be covered by May. The Texas School Safety Center conducted Intruder Detection Audits pursuant to updated legal requirements. Six Denton ISD schools were reviewed. Corrective actions, if any, have been completed at this time. Further detail has been provided to the Board in executive session for the purposes of safety and security.

 

Other Items of Note

AP and National Merit Scholars at Braswell HS, Denton HS and Ryan HS 

Community Spotlight: LovePacs