Board Meeting - July 28, 2025 – Regular Board Meeting 5:30pm

001All right, the time is 5:36 and I call this meeting to order. We're going to go ahead and have roll call. Liz Gutierrez Jordan. Albert Riad Gonzalez here. Oscar Edonto here. Velma Rodriguez here. Let the record show that there is a quorum of board members. We're going to move on to the pledges of allegiance. I aliance to the flag of the United States of America under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to the Texas one state and indivisible. All right, we're going to move on to agenda item three, public participation. Do we have anyone, Miss Moore? No. Okay. All right. So, we're going to move on to agenda item four, the presentations, reports, action items. The first one is 4A, the recognition of the West Oso

002ISD outstanding district volunteers for 2425 school year. That is going to include these individuals and organizations which have demonstrated exceptional commitment, creativity, and service to our students, staff, and schools. Are you going to go ahead and introduce them, Miss Moore? Uh, different people are going to introduce you. Okay. Okay. So, u, Miss Escoel, come on up. So, the first organization is the the American Association of University Women, and they've been working with our students for several years. Um, this is Miss Beatatric Esabel at the junior high, and she's gonna she works directly with them. So, I want her to share a little bit about what they've done this year. Okay. Excuse me. Uh, let the record show that Miss Guthus is here at 5:38 p.m. Okay. Okay. Hi. Okay. Um, thank you. So, yes, I'm

003at the junior high and this year we um we did a lot of um we were able to go to um to the campus, the new campus, the Denmark campus, the girls. So, we do STEM girls. So, it's girls that come along with us and we got to go and tour the campus, the new one. It was really nice. It's um Oso Creek campus. Yeah, Oso Creek. Um the STEM building. Yes. We got t-shirts for the girls. Um we did a lot of um we had present uh presenters come and talk to the girls about careers in STEM. So there was um those were the some of the things we started kind of late this year. So this year we're aiming to start a little bit earlier but we the girls did have a lot

004of opportunities. Um we had what else did we do? I think that was it right because we kind of started later in the year. So so we did get to do those things. So, we're looking forward to this year, like I said, starting early and being able to do a lot more things with the STEM girls there at the junior high. Thank you. I think the American Association of University Women, um, Shen or last name Gonzalez, I am so sorry. And what do you want to come up and introduce? Yes. Yes. So, this is an organization and they have a STEM committee and they've chosen to um basically devote a lot of time to just Weso Junior High. So, but Jennifer, you want to share for just a second? Okay. Yeah. Okay. Hi everyone. Thank

005you so much for having me. Um we are super excited to have been working this is our you know like Miss Kim mentioned we have worked with the STEM girls for several years. Um I am um a part of the American Association of University Women and I'm also the STEM chair so of of the STEM committee. So what I do in my role is I um promote STEM careers for young ladies in junior high and high school and we work with several schools. However, um Miss Beatrice and I um we connected from the beginning and we've had several conversations on our plans and we did start on the second half of the year this past year and we were able to provide a lot of uh STEM sta uh STEM uh really great uh STEM

006um swag from Delmare College because I because I also work at Delmare College. I'm the director of career development. So it works hand inand um with my role with the American associ association of of university women. I'd like to also in um introduce our branch president of the American Association of University Women and see if she wants to talk a little bit about our association and how we are our how we are everywhere. Um my role is the STEM chair and she is our president and it's Miss Ke Mrs. Kelly Gonzalez. Thanks, Jennifer. And thank you, everyone. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. I don't want to talk long. I'm sure you have a packed agenda, but I want to thank you for the honor. We're really really proud uh to be recognized for

007this. Uh we enjoy our our opport the opportunity and we enjoy our partnership with Kim and Beatatric and and the students, the girls here very very much. It's uh for those of you that don't know, the American Association of University Women was founded like in the 1800s. Uh we really are focused on empowering women through education, philanthropy, through um our efforts in the community and we do make sure that we have a bud a budget every year for our STEM committee. I'm very very proud of Jennifer and Beatatric and what they've pulled together this year. Um they they didn't tell you all they've done. They've done more than that, but it's been several activities that they've pulled together really to to make a difference in in these girls' lives. And it it makes a difference

008in our lives, too. So, thank you so much. Thank you. Yeah, we again, we've been working with them actually since before COVID and so um I've never they've been on our little grants and partnerships list, but you've never seen them really in action. So, I want maybe you've seen them in pictures in updates, but I wanted them to recognize them at the board meeting and for y'all to have a chance to see them as well. So, we have a little Maybe what we can do maybe recognize all the organizations. Okay. So, um, our next volunteer appreciation is former board member, Miss Cella Boyd. Um, so about a year ago, I met with Miss Boyd and she said, "I want to help, um, what can I do? I don't, you know, um, I'm no longer on

009the board, but I still want to be part of Westo." And so, I said, "I would love for you to help put together a choir." And that was actually before I even knew that Don could sing. I think I didn't know that at the time, but Miss Boy did. And so, she said, "Oh, okay. I can do that." And so she worked all last year and you saw the results of that. Um, Hispanic Heritage, Black History, they performed at Christmas time with Msoto. They performed at a gingerbread event um at Black History and then our celebration of education and they um might be making an appearance next Monday at a convocation as well. And um I appreciate the fact that she came, you know, again behind the scenes coming in at West Coast Elementary after

010school hours to help our students and what she and that team her Miss Marshall put together and was able to inspire on those students was really quite amazing. I guess they performed Yel's talent show and some other kind of things as well. So Miss Boyd, come up. We want to recognize you. All right. So, um, Miss Eric Gomez is going to introduce our next person. I will say this that, um, Miss Salazar and her team started at JFK, but last year they spread the balloon love across the campus. And I guess they've done stuff at high school and then they did our celebration of education as well. So, hi, I'm Erikica Gamas. I'm the assistant principal over at JFK and we absolutely could not have had such an amazing year as we did without the

011help of Brenda and Mara. We want to give a heartfelt thank you to Brenda and Mara of Lee's Events for two incredible years of making JFK shine. From pre-K performances to reading restaurant to our winter festival, inspiring Black History Month displays and our beautifully decorated PTO performances, your creativity and dedication have made each event truly special, and we absolutely could not say thank you enough for how beautiful you made JFK this year. Thank you. I just want to add that we are super excited. We're losing Miss Emma to Whoa. But we're getting Mia in prek, so we're they're here to stay. I didn't hear who is she losing, what are you losing to who? She was saying that her young her older ch daughter is going from JFK to W E. I heard something different.

012Little child coming into preK next year and hopefully my nephew as well. Okay. Okay. So, um Eric, you can come back up, but I will start sharing too. So, um Miss Anna Jimenez and um international consulting engineers have been amazing. Um they're working just out of the goodness of her heart right now to just get some uh supplies for the district. Um Miss Anna is on our west coastal education foundation board. Um they've also right now and this is the third year I think that they have um hosted summer CT um engineering students and that's such a gift to us because that's one of the things in Westa that we do struggle with having the those work um placements the students to have those kind of opportunities as you know we built our engineering program

013a lot over the course of the last five to eight years and so to have students be able to intern and this year. Um, Miss Garcia will attest to this. We found out that we were funded what, like mid June for our summer grant. And so, just they said yes and turned around and were willing to accept our students with very little notice whatsoever. So, we thank you for that. Um, and that's not all. There's more besides. So, I'm going to let Erica just quickly share what they've done for the campus. Yes, ICE Engineering along with their foundation thought those opportunity foundation has helped JFK so much. We started out our partnership um with our guys with ties program and that was a mentorship where we um mentored our then second graders um who were

014struggling in the classroom, struggling with behavior, who just needed that extra one-on-one time. And ICE was all about it. They said yes from the get-go and they jumped right in. They sponsor our teachers for events during teacher appreciation week, during Christmas lunchons, um just anything that we need, they never say no and we appreciate them from the bottom of our hearts. I just want to also mention I contacted Miss Anna just yesterday for a leadership retreat and without hesitation she said, "Put us down. We're always a yes." So, we want to thank you again for everything that you do for JFK. We could not say thank you enough. And um she also said career day as well. Always shows up at our career days. She's also talking about helping do some extra support for some

015students um for shopping as well. Um I don't think Noah is in her vocabulary. And not only that, I mean she volunteers like volunteers. How can I help? Oh, and and Miss Anna Jimenez was a teacher at JFK as well. So, we're so we're so so grateful for your heart and for your service like so much. Thank you. Wonderful. So, she's a teacher. And of course we we're our goal is to continue to recognize volunteers. Um this is a group a group of six but these are individuals and organizations that have served in 2425 but actually have served beyond that as well. So two more individuals that have done that. Some of them serving Marcy for years definitely beyond that. So u my first one my u mom's the word we've been working together for

016six years actually. So I'm glad that we're finally getting around to recognize you. So three years at JFK and three years at West Elementary. She brings the balloon arches to life. You know, part of the thing is making the place beautiful. So kids want to walk in and see something beautiful, right? That's help that helps with attendance, right? You walk in and see something beautiful. Makes kids want to come to school. Makes them want to dress up and take pictures and do all those fun things at school. That helps kids. That helps with attendance. and the displays that you make, I can't afford them. So, thank you so much for just saying, "Hey, I'll make this for you and I'll make it for free." So, thank you for volunteering for six years. There's another thing

017that you've done for me that people don't know. Um, with my two new playgrounds, I don't know how to pick colors. She has picked every color on my playground. I send her the layout and I said, "So, she's picked the slide color, the swing colors, the pole colors. She's picked every color on my playground." and I send it to her, she sends it back, and then I send it off to the playground people. So, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Um, and now she's had a sweet little baby, and she's still coming up and volunteering. So, thank you so much, Amanda, with Mom's the Word. Come on up, girl. Thank you so much. And she doesn't even have kids here. Oh, I got to say that, too. She's got nieces and nephews. All

018right. Now, we have Miss Mr. Ruben from Walmart. He um walked into West Coast Elementary one day and said, "Hey, I'm going to partner with you. I'm going to be on your campus action team when you need something. Uh we want to partner." And we have been partnering for three years now, two or three years now. And so when we have um teacher appreciation, he calls and says, "Hey, teacher appreciation's coming up. What are we going to do?" and I can't tell you how valuable that is for us because we don't always have um the funds to do stuff for teachers. So, we appreciate that. Also, another fun thing he does for us is um he gives us magazines and crossword puzzles and sodukos for our kids. So, whenever there's downtime instead of doing nothing,

019they can do crossword puzzles, they can do seducos, or we can send those home with them, right? So, they can do those things at home. Uh they can use those magazines, too, when they're doing projects and activities. So, thank you for serving on our committees and thank you for just partnering with us, Ruben. We really appreciate it. And when he needs things at um Walmart, we send our cheerleaders to go do events for him, right? We send we we help each other. So, I really appreciate the partnership. So, come on up, Mr. Appreciate you. [Music] Oh, I saw him. I saw him at Walmart. Want to stand up? Somebody better ask me. Thank you so much. I think the boards probably will want to share some things with you, too. again. Thank you. Oh, thank

020you. Okay. Okay. We're go ahead and start with Miss Jordan. You me? Oh, I just like to say we thank you for investing in Westo Soul and we are so grateful for having you all aboard. Thank you for all that you do for Westo. So, thank you, Miss Guttes. Uh, thank you for what you do for Westoso. I have a question though. Why is it just girls robotics but not boys? What? Why is it just girls and not the boys also? So, it's the American Association of University Women. We have other or things for boys, but their initiative is to empower girls. University with boys. I'm sorry. They're being funded also. They're fine. the boys are, but this one is the university for women. Okay, Mr. Adono. Yes. Uh, thank you for partnering with the

021with Social ISD. We really appreciate everything you do. A lot of this stuff we don't see. We see the balloons and all that, but we never know uh the faces behind it. Walmart, thank you. Uh, all the sponsors. Um, I see a lot of women in leadership skill uh positions and y'all are doing great. I'm outnumbered up here, of course, but continue doing what you're doing. We we we wouldn't be able to do this without you. So, thank you very much. Yes, definitely. Uh, we do want to thank you because like, you know, piggyback backing off of Mr. These are the background people, the people that you don't see when we have all the decorations and everything and the teachers really do appreciate it. And it definitely is stuff like Miss Scma says, we don't

022have the funds to fund it. In fact, we were talking about that because we have a lot of partnerships with people that really want to come and help Westoso. And we are grateful for that because it's like it's never ending. Every year, Miss uh Moore tells me, "Oh, and so and so wants to partnership with us. Come on over. We welcome any partnership." uh because we do want to do like Miss Gam said and the administration wants to do for their employees but you also have to look at the demographics that we live in, the tax base that we live in, the monies that we owe and all that stuff. So in the end, these partnerships help us tremendously. So we are eternally grateful. We really are. Thank you so much. online. Oh, I'm sorry.

023Uh, and Mr. Varial, I'm sorry that he's virtually. He's a board member and he's doing his meeting virtual. Do you have any comments, Mr. Variel? Yes, I want to thank them for their support and we appreciate them and uh we could wish to continue to work with you. We appreciate you. Thank you so much. Thank you to all the volunteers. uh Miss uh Moore has decided to do this on a monthly basis whenever we have our meetings. That way I mean we can't cover the hundreds of supporters that we do have and partnerships. So we're going to be doing this on a monthly basis hopefully covering you know five to six uh partnerships that we because we are grateful and uh I think at the end of the year they do have a celebration for

024everybody you know invited they're welcome here to come to the central office and uh Miss Jackson uh the executive assistant of Miss uh Moore you know hosts it and and gets it organized for all our volunteers. So, we welcome you then, too. But thank you very much. Very much. All right, we're going to move on to agenda item. Okay. Okay. Uh, is that okay just to switch? Okay. Is that okay, Byron? Yeah, I think somehow it got switched. You you go ahead. Oh. So, um I think that most of you recognize um Dr. Robin Pizzerella's face. Um we've been working with her with Grow Your Own with Noise. Um, and so what was grow your own is now um, basically morphed into what they call it's a little bit different, but she'll kind of go

025over the differences, but it's called a strategic staffing residency grant. And I'm proud to say that Westosa was the only one in region 2, and I can't remember how many throughout the state. There wasn't that many throughout the state that got this grant. So, it's a two-year grant. and um she's going to be just sharing with you a little overview of what um the grant looks like over the next course of the next two years. Thank you. Yes, I'm excited to be here tonight to share with you this new partnership that TAMUCC will have with Westoso because we do love our partners. So, oh, do I click or do you click? Your preference, but you can go left arrow, right arrow to Okay, we'll see. I think I'll just do it. Okay. So, I wanted

026to introduce our TAMU CC team. So, I am Dr. Robin Pizzatollah. I've been on all of our campuses. So, I'm excited to be the lead site coordinator here for this Islander residency. We also have here Dr. Phyllis Robertson. She wears many hats at the university. She's a professor of special ed. She's our chair of curriculum instruction and learning sciences and she is now our interim associate dean for certification and all other things. So she is also one of your support people for um our islander residency. So I want to just give you a quick overview of the islander residency to tell you you know why are we doing residency why is the state funding this and components of the program and then the instructional support model and how it benefits ISD. So for us at

027TAMUCC the residency obviously enhances our educator preparation program. It contributes to the knowledge base. It helps you know specifically teacher education research finding new strategies and best practices for student learning and student achievement. And it really works to look for ways with the residency because it is year-long which we'll explain in a minute to really enrich the students content knowledge their skills and dispositions in the education profession. And then why residency for Westoso? So why does Wesoso want to be a part of this? It contributes to student achievement during the residency year. So not only for our our university students but also for your Westo students. Um it demonstrates high levels of effectiveness in early teaching years. So the students who we hope stay in Westo to teach that's one of the goals. They have

028you know higher retention higher efficacy in the first years. The residents stay in the teaching profession longer. Residencies attract culturally and linguistically diverse teacher candidates. and it does save the district's money over time via increased retention. Hold on. Okay, so here are some things that Westoso ISD will gain from the Islander residency. Additional instructional support four days per week because we know having two teachers in a classroom is much better than one when possible. Um it begins training aspiring teachers a full year before they are employed in the district. So these residents will participate in new teacher orientation. They will participate in back-toschool professional development days. They will be a part of curriculum adoptions and learning westos curriculum. That is one of the requirements with tea for residency is that they begin day one with

029the school district and they end um on the final day with students. So they are there much longer than the traditional pathway. It builds a steady pipeline of highly trained new teacher candidates. We um it's a way to collaborate with TAMUCC at quarterly governance to weigh in on programming. So we have meetings quarterly to really with all of the stakeholders and with administrators on both sides of the university and the district. Um it supports selection of effective host teachers. Provides a stipen funded by the Texas strategic staffing grant to offset some living expenses during the residency year. We know that the traditional pathway, you know, they the students are still having to work and, you know, they don't get paid for that. And so with the residency, there is a stipend funded by that grant

030that Westoso received. So that's really important to our students. So components we wanted you to know about, especially for this year, you will have four residents. They are all going to be placed at West Oso Elementary. Three of them are EC6 certification and one is an all- level art certification. So those will be our four there with Miss Davis at the elementary. They will begin with their host teachers actually tomorrow. So we are doing orientation starting at 9 in the morning and they will be be with their host teachers throughout the entire academic year. So they will not until the end of May. And then each resident will receive $10,000 for the year. that will be their stipen. Okay. So, we really just are excited to build this strong foundation together. I wanted to share

031a little bit of what that foundation looks like because it's so important because again, this is a partnership and it's really important to the university and to the district. So, there are a lot of people involved. We have, of course, our Islander resident, you know, the university student. We have the host teacher who is a highly qualified teacher that Miss Davis has chosen to be one of the to be the mentor for our residents. I am our site coordinator. So, I will be with the residents all year long and I will be at the schools weekly um multiple times some weeks to to check in on them and work with the uh host teachers and with the administration. And then we also have our university faculty. So the courses that the residents take will be

032aligned with residency and what they are doing here at Westoso and what they're doing in their classrooms. So it really is a partnership between district individuals, the district administration is another partner and the university. So some more components just so you have a a better idea of what the residency looks like and how it is different from the traditional model. It is a full year of clinical experience embedded in a classroom from the first day to the last day. We've mentioned that many times, but that's a really important component that is different. They start from day one and they end with the final day. Um the residents do attend district trainings, professional development, afterchool events. We want them as immersed in the West OSO ISD school culture as possible. Another um change is they will

033utilize a co-e method. So they will be a co-teer in the classroom from day one. Tomorrow during orientation, we will talk with the host teachers and the residents about what that looks like. They're not sitting back and observing. They are starting from day one as a co-teer. So it really helps them take on those instructional responsibilities immediately. And then they will report to Westo ISD four days each week and they will complete TAMUCC coursework on the fifth day. So all year they will be here at Westoso four days and then at TAMU CC one day. So what part of the strategic staffing grant and part of the way that this grant is sustainable for the future with Westoso is called an instructional support model. So we just wanted to give you a little bit of

034what that looks like. So this is an example. It could change a little bit depending on the day and depending on what the university and the district decides, but for this year, this is the decision that's been made. On Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be their required TEA hours, what they have to do for their fieldwork required by TEA. On Tuesday, they will be at the university with me and with other professors for their coursework. And then on Friday is what we call an instructional support day. That is the day that they are also here at Westoso, but they are here learning here with their host teacher, but they also could be used for instructional support in other ways to gain experience, to help out the district, and to do some things that help them

035gain knowledge and experience. So what that could look like, so during that instructional day, um the support day, the residents can substitute, they can have instructional coverage, they can tutor, they can observe, do really whatever the district needs them to do. And so it helps with again, you know, when you have to hire tutors, when you have to hire substitutes, if you have those residents here to be able to take some of that responsibility and to do that, it helps the district sustain this residency program and continue with providing um the money for residents. So again, they can substitute for the host teacher or any teacher on campus after the first six weeks. They can provide coverage for the host teacher or another teacher. That way the host teachers can mentor new teachers, can provide

036intervention, could attend any meetings that they needed to attend onampus PD, engage in extended lesson planning or co-planning or PLC's and any other key instructional meetings. So again, you don't have to hire a sub when you have a resident who can do that one day a week to help. So, it really is the working with the administration and we'll work with Marcy on making sure that you know we have a plan for that and um that they're able to provide that instructional support to help Westoso. They can also provide small groupoup instruction and they can conduct additional observations where they're either going into other classrooms or they're working with other host teachers. So, a lot of options there um to support West OSO and just make it beneficial of course for both which that's what

037we want is that reciprocity between uh the university and West OSO. So, that was really quick. Do you have any questions or just anything you want to know about the residency? All right, we're going to go ahead and start with Mrs. Jordan. I don't have any questions, but uh we thank you again for partnering with us. I know previous uh uh with the grow your own teachers if we we really appreciate it and we thank you again for partnering with us. Miss Gutierrez, no questions. Mr. Arzondo, no questions, but we really appreciate uh your partnership with us. Um it's a win-win for both the district and with this university and for the um teachers that are becoming teachers. So thank you very much for all that. And Miss Gonzalez, thank you so much for partnering

038with us. But I do have one question. The you said that they're going to go in there to sub. Are you're going to give that training for the sub? You know, we are that you are definitely. Yes. And they will not be released to do that until the host teacher is comfortable with that. The principal is comfortable and I'm comfortable. So there will be a lot of discussions before that happens. That was my for sure. Thank you so much. Okay. And uh how long was this grant? Is it for the following year? to you. So, so do you know because I know a lot of emphasis goes with JFK and WOE. Um, do can we expect for you to move on to the junior high or the high school? Probably not just because we the

039grant they want it all on one campus and they don't have as many they just don't have as many. That's what I was going to ask. Yeah. most of what they have or that's why enrollment of we do have primarily elementary teachers. We do have a secondary residency um that is in another district but yes I mean that would have to be yeah that there would be you know lots of conversations and discussions and if we had enough students then so we would love it your graduates come pursue secondary at the university. Yeah. And we do have the voice grants still for a couple more years where we where we're providing math and you know science second grade teachers to help out the the high school and the junior high also. Yeah. This semester we

040have how many? A couple at the high school, right? Two at the high school. Yes. And three at the So we have something like this already. The noise grant is still continued. So how long is that one? Two more years. That is so great. So that helps because y'all do get some of our Actually, we get we pretty much get all I mean it's math. A lot of other districts ask us for math and science and we say, "Well, we have a noise grant." So, you know, that's that's a positive that y'all with our secondary. Yeah, that that's greatly appreciated because, you know, as far as instructional, you know, the more help the better. U we know, you know, research shows that students do much better when they have that much help. That's why I

041really like the point that you made to utilize a co-eing method because uh I'm I'm a former educator too and sometimes we would see you know the teachers coming in stapling stuff but you got to really get into the nitty-gritty to to be able to you know to get that experience as far as teaching. So, I I really commend that because that's that's going to be so helpful to those, you know, veteran teachers, whether they're veteran or not. It the help is tremendous. So, and then I just had one more question. Oh, I was also going to uh talk about the subs, but that's being covered by by our in uh training. Yes. Okay. And it's a gradual release. It doesn't happen until after the first week. Yeah. Because Yeah. Yeah. Because even the subs

042that we get now, I mean, they're going to they're surprised. Um, okay. Yeah, that's Oh, thank you for reminding me. Mr. Viel, do you have any comments? Yes, I see a great advantage instructionally to have a co-teer in there. It's a great uh it's a win-win for both the the the teacher and the the student and it's a it's a win-win for the t for the university and the and the school district. Thank you. Yes. And one more positive thing is that uh I think from what I've heard is a lot of your students stay here in our district. They do and you know the grow your own and all that stuff. So that we're grateful for that too. Thank you very much. We appreciate it. Thank you. So you want Yes. Just wanted to

043add one thing to you all because one of the things that we say is we consider ourselves teacher educators. We're preparing but we can't prepare them without educators. Your mentorship, your ability to share, welcome our students into your classrooms. We can't prepare good teachers without that. So, thank you very very much. Oh, you're very welcome. And I'm sure our administrators thank you so much. All right. So, now we're we did the strategic staffing grant and now we're going to do agenda item 4 B1, the climate survey. Miss Comets. Okay. So, balance priority to report it's attract, develop, support and retain highly qualified and effective staff. So, the first slide, climate, the climate survey results. The question was, I have the tools and resources I need to be successful in 2025. 23% strongly agreed. 62% agreed.

044There was 13% that disagreed and 2% that strongly disagreed. So they feel strongly that we they do have the tools that they need. I would encourage someone to work at Westo ISD. 35% strongly agree, 47% agree, 15% disagree, and 3% strongly disagree. Climate survey results. The district leaders are transpar transparent and communicate well. 18% strongly agreed, 57% agreed, 16% disagreed, and 9% strongly disagreed. Climate survey results. I know how many work align how my work aligns with the overall goals of the district. 50% strongly agreed, 48% agreed. There was 5% who disagreed and 0% that strongly disagreed. I am proud to work for my district. 52% strongly agreed, 41% agreed. There was 4% who disagreed and 3% who strongly disagreed. I get the training that I need to be successful. 29% strongly agreed, 50% agreed.

04516% disagreed and 6% strongly disagreed. I feel safe at work. 40 43% strongly agreed, 44% agreed, 9% disagreed, and 4% strongly disagreed. I feel that I am treated fairly at work. 35% strongly agreed. 43% agreed, 13% disagreed, and 9% felt strongly disagreed. I believe my district has a positive culture. 23% strongly agreed, 61% agreed, 11% disagreed, and 5% strongly disagreed. So, what did our results show? What are the three best things about our district in regards to community and culture? Every They felt that we were a close-knit family and the atmosphere is the most common theme. They also felt there was a strong sense of belonging and pride when you when you work here at Westo. And they felt that it is of course once a bear always a bear. They were truly still felt

046very strongly about that positive collaborative culture. We're going to figure it out attitude. Everyone is there to help in some way or another. We're going to get it done. What are the three best things about our district? Leadership and administration. Supportive, approachable leadership, open communication and quick responses, transparency and respect for staff input. What are the three best things about our district? As far as staff and co-workers are concerned, co-workers are described as friendly, supportive, and collaborative. The staff feels valued, trusted, and respected. Teachers appreciate the autonomy in teaching and the freedom to adopt their curriculum and the lack of micromanagement. Students and family. Students are seen as kind, respectful, and appreciative. Families are described as involved and very supportive and strong student teacher relationships due to the small size of the district. Mental health

047and work life balance repeated praise for the mental health dates and understanding of administration programs and opportunities. They highlighted the STEM afterchool program, the ACE program and extracurricular activities. They appreciate the district-wide events such as heritage celebrations, positive comments on professional development, communication and collaboration, open door, easy access to leadership, and the emphasis on teamwork and collaboration, compensation and staffing. Payraises were the top concern. They felt the need for bonuses, retention incentives, and better benefit better benefits as far as medical and holidays were concerned. And many urged matching pay with our neighboring districts. Oh, sorry. I got ahead of myself. Am I there? Can you go back to that? Yes. There we go. Good. uh communication and transparency, the desire for clearer, timelier updates, the TIA implementation, policy changes, calendar adjustments, and the need for

048more transparency as far as communication is concerned. Behavior and discipline, there was a widespread frustration with inconsistent or weak student discipline. They felt the accountability system for students needed to improve. We need firm assistant principles and clear consequences for attendance and tardy issues. And there's a concern about the lenency leniency with certain students, resources and infrastructure. They need they stressed the need for technology upgrades, instructional material and curriculum, classroom supplies, color printing, updated furniture, and cleaner facilities. Major concerns were the building conditions, especially at West Junior High. training and professional development. There was mixed feedback regarding the effectiveness of professional development. Some of the recommendations were more relevant and content content specific PD revamp or replace the district conferences. The district conference include practical training for new teachers and ongoing training for substitutes and support

049staff. morale and culture. Many feel overwhelmed, overworked, underappreciated, and unsupported. Some of the suggestions were to recognize all staff, including non-eing roles such as nurses and custodians, reduce micromanagement from central office, ensure fair distribution of responsibilities, and improve teacher autonomy and trust. just say a couple things before just how we generated these. I want to kind of explain how we generated these because you have everyone responds to questions on a scale of one, you know, agree, strongly agree, disagree, strongly disagree. So then I'm going to be very honest. I used AI to summarize. We ask them what are the three strengths, what are the three um concerns, right? And so they're they're summarizing those, but a lot of people didn't there's a lot of people that wouldn't that answered the agree strongly agree, disagree, strongly

050disagree that didn't put concerns down because they weren't required to put comments. So it I just want to make sure people understand it's not like 150 people put comments. There might have been 40 to 45 people that put comments. So you'll notice that you're saying, well, was it were we transparent or not transparent? Were we micromanaging or not micromanaging? Well, obviously some people thought we were this and some people thought we were that. Does that make sense? Because some of it sounds contradictory. And the reason is Belinda Gomez might say um you know the facilities are clean. Kim Moore might say the facilities aren't clean. Well, part of that is we might be at different campuses, right? Giving those kind of feedback because this is district-wide data. And of course, we've um shared it out

051with the different campus leaders. the campus leaders have their data. Um, but it's just the fact that people have different opinions, right? So, okay, we can move our question to this. Oh, hold on. I, yeah, I did understand that part because I mean, you have some in your, you know, your campus surveys where, you know, I do feel the district is this and this blah blah blah. I mean just promoting us and then you have that other one that's saying no I don't feel that our district I feel underappreciated but your other one just said that you do feel so I get it it's you know it's it's yeah and it's not by it's all by specific comments that in general you didn't get a hundred of them maybe you got two or three and

052so you still got to put them in. So yeah, I understand that part. I'm sorry, Miss Gutas. Go ahead. No, I want to ask um my question is okay. Um how many staff members I I I don't see this as fully everybody answered. I I don't I feel maybe you know if we have 300 staff members maybe 50 or 75 answered but what is the how many 130 answered and the reason is we can't require them to answer right if we want it to be anonymous we can't require the only the only way to require everyone to answer is to make it not anonymous or if we're true to making it anonymous then we send it out so how I understand it is the top over here is going to answer. But you had a

053lot of them that How How many employees do we have in the district? Um just about 290 or so. So about half of them answered. 190 teachers in the whole district. Employees 290 employees. Teachers we teachers about 140. That's it. Yep. Tell y'all every time. Maybe I need to put these things up. Same 140 or so that we've had. So, um, we definitely got very strong positives and you can see the big picture, but we got some people that definitely laid it out and told us how they felt negative. It wasn't all positive. So, um, we keep putting things out there and I'm going to let you go through it, but um, I think it was a fair sampling of a lot of concern is the junior high. A lot of concern is uh over

054overworked, underpaid and over you know that is a concern in in in throughout the district. That's one of the concerns that we do hear. I mean I've heard it's like you know they're underpaid they're over I mean they these teachers work so much they Right. And so what we tried to do I mean honestly I could have edited this in any way. We just gave you what we got and so this is what we got. Um but you want to continue because then we So as we embark into the 2025 2026 school year, these are some of the plans ahead. The strategic actions learning walks taking place monthly and rotating campuses. Salary increases for all staff members. Assigning a mentor to all employees that are new to the district regardless of their years of experience

055in education. No cell phones throughout the entire school day for students. Reinforcing expectations for personal cell phone calls use of employees limited to lunch break and emergency calls only. Creating a superintendent staff advisory council for feedback throughout the year, especially as it pertains to communication. Continue working on plans for a bond to address critical maintenance repair needs throughout the district. utilizing PLC's rather than campus or district-wide meetings as a vehicle for distributing and receiving critical information such as teacher incentive aotment, multi-tered systems of support, instructional supplies, and technology needs. Replace district-wide teaching and learning conference with campus-based targeted professional development. And as we know, happy teachers plus happy students make happy schools. Definitely, Miss Jordan. Well, I'm a glad I'm am happy that you addressed some of the concerns that they addressed. And I when

056I read this, I'm like, they've been contradictory. You know, over here it was wonderful and then over here, you know, uh it was the but the Was the this only with teachers or was support staff involved in all staff? This was sent out to all staff. They were 100%. Uhhuh. 100. No, I'm saying 100%. Yes. It's true that we sent it out to everybody. Yeah. Yeah. But you know when I hear even the percentage was small but still it's not good when you have comments you know coming uh from I know we can't please everybody but uh I was I'm going to tell you what I said. If you so unhappy here why are you here? And that that's exactly what I said when I when I read some comments, you know, and especially when

057you say you don't you wouldn't recommend nobody to come to this district. Well, why are you here if it will so bad? And that's that's the concern that I had. And I know we don't please everybody, but um when I read some of the the the comments, it it it didn't please me at all. Right. and and know also I dare to say that some of the people that wrote those comments aren't here anymore because we've had some people yes I know well I can know for a fact that several of the people that wrote the comments are not here anymore so all right uh Mr. Oo, no questions. Miss Gonzalez, did the teach the staff the campus did they get with and then they able to work with their staff members? I'm sorry. So

058I sent it out to each of the campus leaders and um so when they're working on their campus improvement plan process, which they'll start, you know, this month, they'll start, you know, part of it's called a comprehensive needs assessment. So, part of the data that they have is they have um for the first time this year, we did um student climate surveys at the elementary, junior high, high school, but they'll have I didn't send them everything. I sent them their campus information and their campus comments so that they know what they specifically need to work on. So, they have that right now. I have one more. I I just uh Yeah. And and that's real important for your your administrators to let your teachers know you you have a say in this and you need

059to comment because if they don't know but all they hear is you well you don't we're we're so disappointed in what and and how can you make it better, right? Y'all as leaders, you need to let your teachers know. I know I did when I was a teacher. I did let them know. we need to do this. Every voice counts, but we got to hear it. If if it's not if we it's not heard, then it doesn't. Yeah. And then you as an administrator, well, you know, if you heard, hey, nobody ever thought of that. Let's try that. So, I really I really would ask that you let your teachers know, comment on there. No, it's anonymous. and and really even if it's anonymous, you're going to have to be at that round table and

060let and some somebody has to say something like, "Hey, I don't I don't think this ever works. I don't think it continues to work." And yeah, you might not like the the feeling of that principle being there, but it needs to be said if you really really want to make things better. Everybody needs to come in. Miss Jordan. Oh, yeah. uh the learning walks. Tell me what will that involve cuz I know some things happen in the classroom and I'm just wondering if the administrators go in and observe the classroom. So tell me about the learning walk. Well, what I did with you all, but instead of doing it just like we did it kind of consecutive weeks in the spring, remember when we went around to the classrooms and we went in and out

061of the classrooms. So instead of doing it that way, several of the teachers and their feedback said, "I want you first of all, you know, when we came in, it was kind of close to testing time. I want you to come in earlier and start at the beginning of the year." So what we'll do is we'll schedule like um September, October, November, December. We might do JFK in September, we in October, um junior high in November, and I'm just making something up. high school in December, then January, February, March, April again, and do not that y'all have to be there a full day, but what I'm going to do for our team because of that request for us to be there more and really be able to see more is spend a whole day. And

062then if y'all come for part of that day, that's fine. But for them to know that we're there, we're not just kind of showing up, you know, in in April, which was the feedback that they got. They wanted us to come in earlier. And my other question is, how often do your administrators go in and observe your classrooms? Y'all can answer. I mean on the teachers in order for us to really get a pulse of what's normal Thank you. Yeah. And I asked that because and and I tal was one of the teachers in there doing voodoo stuff, you know, and why why didn't the administrators know that this woman is there having the kids do chants and, you know, and all this kind of stuff? That's the reason why I asked because uh uh

063heard it from the students and I'm like, well, y'all should have reported it, you know, and and and but uh I was a little concerned when I when they told me that, but that's fine. Okay. Yeah, we heard that. So the other thing again just in an effort when um I think I shared with you all that we're going to come around and meet um the uh myself, Miss Alvarado, Miss Gomez and Miss Mendes are going to be um going around to talk to each campus about some of uh the handbook highlights if I want to call it the handbook highlights tour. But I'm also at that time gonna try to solicit some people that want to be my superintendent staff advisory council. And that's going to intentionally not be my department chairs, not be

064um those grade chairs. I want I really want a cross section of and if enough people don't volunteer, then we'll kind of tap shoulders and see. But I want it to be people that are not likely to show up at my door. Ones that might have some just a variety. some with a little bit of experience in the district, some with a lot of experience, some teachers, some um non-certified staff so that I can meet with them kind of like I do with the students. I started meeting with the students once a month. I'll meet with that group once a month. And meeting with the students once a month has been super helpful. So trying to meet with I'm going to call it again the superintendent staff advisory. It will not just be teachers. It

065will not be admin. So that I hear the voice of the custodian. I hear the voice of the food service. I hear the voice of the parah and can kind of figure listen to them and hopefully I don't want to wait till May to fix things if we can be fixing things along the way. Yeah, I was well I wasn't done with mine, but go ahead, Miss I was going to ask in that and piggy backing on Miss Miss um Miss Jordan, I don't understand if you're supposed to be going into the classrooms, why is it that the principles do not know what's going on on their campuses? Okay, so this is a lot of issues. Okay. All right. So, this is not We're talking about the climate survey. That is the climate survey, ma'am.

066it. The climate survey does not say that. There's nothing about the climate survey that said that and we're not going to be talk putting principles on the defensive in this meeting. That's not appropriate. And let me ask you, you know what? Never mind. It doesn't make sense. No, it does. It does. It's just it's just the the the question. Don't ask the question. No, we do. Go ahead. Okay. Um I do want to go back on the mental health days that is going to continue for Yeah. because you did get a lot of praise for that. The afterchool ACE we just know that we did get the funding for this year. We don't know about next year. So, let's just, you know, because some of these, yeah, we needed to do this, we needed to

067do do that. But that's if we have access to the money, uh, compensation and staffing. We did, you're going to hear it next, we did, they did a very good compensation plan for the overall staff with the money, pot of money that we had. So, um I do hear these concerns. We hear it all the time. We hear it all the time that we don't give Yeah. We do not give raises, unfortunately. Maybe 1% on the last time that we did because we don't have the money. We do not have the money to function. If Westoso wants to continue uh paying payroll and having the people that we have, we need to get to the legislature. Let's get your help on that, Louise. We need to get to the legislature and have them hear us

068because they're not What did they raise the basic lot a lotment? $46. $46 for this year. Inflation has risen and that was it. That's all we got. But thank God we got raises $55. But we did get raises for our teachers. But I'm going to remind you because Miss uh Moore didn't want to put a damper. We still have to pay the TRS part of those raises. They gave teachers 8%. They gave the other ones what? Four uh 4,000 the 4,000 and then the 8,000. That's what they gave and said you will pay these teachers this. You will increase their raises. But she failed to mention that. Oh, what you still take on the burden of TRS contributions which amounted to what when I saw 500,000 something what was it? It was close to 500,000.

069So we still had to get that out of our general fund which we didn't have the money for it but somehow they did it. So, yeah, a lot of these things do not get questioned because, you know, we want to be happy that that your teachers got an $8,000 raise or I mean 8 8,000 and the other ones 4,000. But there's also these things that are in the back burner that no, they did not get done. The legislature didn't give us any money for that. So, five almost $500,000 of our general funding came out of our budget that we did not uh save. It has to be a balanced budget. Exactly. And then, you know, we did get a pot of money uh for our other employees and we did they did use them. I

070think uh wise decision. Uh you're going to see all of that um hear all of that from Miss Mendes. Um did everybody get what they probably wanted? No. But I think if you see it across the board, which the board members did see it on the packet, you will see that they did a pretty a pretty awesome job to make sure that everybody got compensated, whether it be a little bit or a lot. And we know the ones that did need a lot more were our auxiliary. And happy to say, I don't want to burst your bubble, but they're up at $15 an hour where at last year they were not. We were like $2 under, but we're getting there and we're utilizing the money that the legislature does give us, but it's not enough.

071It's not enough. So, um, and we do try our best to look. We Yeah. Will you You haven't heard our session you all that we do cuz we appreciate it and we appreciate you standing here under the conditions that we're under. But we do need to help them. I do because I do uh like Miss uh Guutieres alluded to, I do want to want our administration to really look at behavior and discipline because I know as a former teacher, no teacher likes for that student to keep going to the office and sending them back, sending them back. And it's the same thing all year long. and it's just it it really hurts the instructional teaching going on in that classroom. So that was one of the areas of improvement the resources and infrastructure. Yeah, we're

072doing we are trying to go after a bond to especially for the junior high that that is but they're not our only concern. Uh we have other stuff with the other buildings that if we don't start doing that, they're going to be start looking at like the junior high. Um but yes, Miss Castillo, Dr. Castillo, we are addressing that. That is uh the facilities committee are meeting on a monthly basis or how often? Monthly. Yeah. I I do want to say something and that's being addressed. Uh, junior high is one of 60 years. Mhm. When did we ever spend a little bit of money on the junior high? Never. No, that's not true. You can look it up. Where is it? Well, we have done. We We will get some of that information. Get that

073information. Yeah, she can give you that. I've been on the board. She's been on the board. We can get that information. But there you're right. They're like band-aids. But no, we have band-aids. A lot of times I teach more than bandaids. It was the a lot of times it takes a lot of money, a lot of money that we don't have access to. But you're right, it needs to be done. But I'm just mentioning these things because it's not like, oh, we're mentioning these and they're not going to do anything about it. We've we've addressed it. We've done we've had the consultants come out. What can you do to the junior high if we're not going to get cuz let's face it right now. Let's be out in we're not going to get a new

074junior high anytime soon. It is $72 million that we do not even have. I don't even think we have half. So, is it the No, but we have to think outside the box and see what can we keep from the junior high and they can still come in and do exist uh do renovations for it. But all that is still money coming out. Um the salary increases for the staff members, we did that. No cell phones, all that. That's that's coming from the legislature. The TIA, that's another one that we are as a board looking at because this is something that the legislature is putting out like, hey, your teachers can get this money. And I know a lot of people criticize and say, oh, you know, you got to put a dog and pony

075show to get this. No, it's not. I do believe that your teachers can show growth and growth that would enable them to qualify for the TIA. The TIA is the TIA is for us it's a savior because it helps us as far as raises. We cannot give anything above a 5% raise. We we we barely can give a 1% raise. So for me and for the board members, as we've discussed, the TIA is a big thing. You've got to put resources on that because our teachers, if they want to get that TIA, they should be able to because we have the resources. You know, whatever you want to know about the TIA, we got it. And and we're going to help you get this money. This is to me, this is so important. and replace

076the teaching and learning conference. What do you all mean by that? What what So we would do a one-day conference where the whole district is together and they um want us to do more campus-based professional de development so that it's just targeted towards the each campus. I can see the understanding in that. Yeah. So we're going to try that this year a fair request. So that's what All right. Any other Mr. Do you have I'm I do not mean to Mr. Vadel, but this is this is out of the ordinary, but go ahead. Your comments. I I know that uh from uh climate climate surveys, you gather things that uh people uh feel strongly about that are good and they they also indicate some areas that might be addressed. I think that uh districtwide, I

077think every campus should uh have on their improvement plan something related that addresses discipline. And then you you might list the things that you think the the the staff is is uh interested in improving and then make a list. And then I would uh suggest that they prioritize uh uh the the list by by uh how it affects instruction and student learning. Those need to be the the main things. uh you can't address you can't address a whole list that you could that that you're able to generate. So I wouldn't try to I don't know you you need to draw a line somewhere. I think the line but at the very top I think you need to include uh discipline. What are you going to do? Every campus needs to have a plan that they

078can evaluate for discipline. If they feel like kids are not being dealt with okay what are you going to do about it? Who's going to look at that? Who's going to suggest something or or or give leadership to things that uh are going to be uh implemented that that that's going to help uh what um and then instruction you're everything should be geared towards uh instruction. anything that affects instruction, you know, to you need to look at. And uh I don't know who's going to look at those improvement plans, but I think they need to be looked at by by someone. I I I am not sure if it's the superintendent, the uh I don't a committee I I don't know. Uh certainly uh somebody that's strong in discipline should look at that different discipline

079uh ideas that are going to be generated by the different campuses and so on. People that are strong in whatever you're working on those are the people that need to be looking at those things. Thank you. Yep. Totally agree with you. So just Mr. Valeriel our process is um they work on their campus improvement plans. They submit them um uh to me, but then you know we're I my team the cabinet team reviews them and then they then they present them in November. So you'll be part of where each campus will be presenting them to the board. So Miss Moore, you don't have a uh an advisory committee with teachers now. You don't have one. We have the we have campus advisory teams and then district advisory teams and they and their purpose is to

080um look at like how broadly how to improve the campus and the district but this would be more like again like my superintendent advisory where they're going to focus on okay here's our climate survey more like communication transparency are there cons like cons staff concerns things like that um Is there because sometimes I think oh I'm communicating but what what do they want communicated? So it's going to be more around that piece of it. Okay. Yeah. M Rodriguez I'm sorry on that no on that advisory that she's talking about she said that she she has started a student advisory. Uh okay. When does the student advise you to come and address the board as far as what they see, what they find or what or is it just between you and them? I mean, they

081can come and uh address the board. I mean, some of it with that safe school ambassador group was a group of those students that you know, I mean, there's an overlap. It's not the same students, but yeah, we can address the board. It's a good idea to address the board on a quarterly basis. Sometimes our agenda items are a lot. So, on a le or at least once a semester, you know, we can do that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure they'd be happy to that. It's a good idea. They might have some ideas. Yeah, I think that's a good idea. Uh, and Mr. Adono was also saying that, you know, when they're doing their campus improvement plans, uh, I think it would be a good idea to look at the old one and like y'all

082do, you know, write out you'll see the red like we're not going to do that anymore. That way we can see the differences that you've done instead of read the old one, read the new one, where are the differences? Maybe just say changes because it'll probably be hard to read. So additions, I mean, because we're using, remember, we're using the balance scorecard. So that's where we're editing on that document, but we can kind of as we're making edits, just kind of notice things that we're changing. I think that's a good idea that he said, too. We'd like to see those edits because it's like you're going to be taking out the what didn't work in 2425 and say, you know what, now we're going to do this or whatever it said. Well, like they might

083have said last year they might have said we want to improve uh math scores by 15%. Well, did that happen? Right. Right. What what happened between what they told us and absolutely being proposed now? They said it was going to be increase by 15%. Did it increase by 15%? Did it increase by 5%. If not, what are we going forward if that's still an improvement, right? What are we going to do different, right? Since we didn't get to the 15% goal or something like that. So, absolutely. I would like to see something where what did you propose last year? Where did we wind up? And what are you proposing for this coming year? So, because we we forget about last year. Yeah. And to me, it sounds sometimes repetitive. Well, they said that last year

084and they said that last year, but where exactly did we what are the outcomes? What was the outcome? Okay, so that sounds good. And maybe when we do our presentations, we'll focus on that. Not saying the same things we've been saying, but maybe just hitting some key points of that way we can see, well, how much of it did you meet and are you saying the same thing again even though we didn't meet it there? And what why didn't we meet it? And what if we're going to go forward again? What are you going to do differently? Yep, that makes sense. That makes sense. And like I shared with you some I know um and I'll be happy to print them out and next week when we have the strategic roundt because we worked really

085hard on some district-wide systems especially around discipline DAP and things like that. So I'll have some of that printed for our meeting on Monday. The key to all that and I keep harping on it is uh you have to be consistent with your documentation, right? Whether it be with students, teachers, administrators Mhm. The documentation has to be there because in case we have to go to another step, right? This is why we're doing what we're doing because all the stuff is documented. So, as a district, I think we need to cover our butts on that. Okay. Is the air condition on because it is hot in here or I don't know about anybody else. It's going through. Okay. We'll find out. We're going to move on to agenda item 4 C. the presentation and discussion

086regarding the following proposed salary scales for the 2025 2026 school year. Miss Mendes. Um good evening board. Um I'm going to go over the preliminary working salary scales. We're still kind of going through them. Um, we do have to make sure that we look at revenue really close and all the expenses before we can actually really tie this scales down. Is this part of it? Yes. Uh, before you get started, what is the midpoint? What years do do they do before you get to the midpoint? We're still discussing. Uhhuh. It's not really years. It's just kind of like a recommendation. The midpoint is approximately 15 years but it's not a it's not a step so it's not set on stone it but generally zero 1530 [Music] generally big picture speaking beginning your minimum would be

087zero years your midpoint would be 15 and then your maximum would be 30 generally speaking when you see those three the three categories the the beginning the midpoint and the midpoint is 15 15 years but we we we will be discussing that in detail because it's it it it wasn't quite uh cleared up so and like they said because I asked and maybe if you want to look for it now what does TASBY say where are we getting absolutely said that so two years ago when we I know but if it's not but we'll go in when we discuss it because yeah that's a it it needs to be discussed and it needs to be really uh yeah I think this midpoint is is crazy has okay so um I just want to remind everyone

088so two years ago when we were um uh came on board we worked with TAZO which is the Texas Association of School Business Officials and then they did that comprehensive study with us um we asked lots of questions and many of us were involved in that and went got a lot guidance from them, attended professional development. So things that we're saying were based on that training that we got from TASB. No, but the things that you're saying aren't that specific to say if you're telling me that the midpoint is zero to 15 years, but it's not based on scales or steps. So what do you base it on? Then you base it on experience and the need that is that you have. And so do you have a scale that says if you have seven

089years of experience compared to 15 years of experience or compared to 10 years of experience because that's not listed. It's just you said 05 right? So let's just pretend. Okay. And let's I mean just make it simple. Let's say let's just say zero zero years of experience is um $15 an hour. Or we can go to one of these. Do you want to go to one of them? Um, can we go on? Okay. We know we already know we this this is going to be an agenda item. So, I've already told you about that. I know it's going to be very specific in answer, you know, as far as the questions that we want answered. We have board members here that have been for 20 to 25 years. And all we got, not y'all, is

090that the midpoint is the midpoint. And you just take it and don't ask any more questions. And that's not going to be anymore. And I'm not blaming y'all, but I'm just saying it needs to be to where there is no Yeah, but you know, and that's what I got from my last Maybe we need to see if we can just get someone to do a training. See Tasbo come down. Yeah, maybe not TASBY because I did see their literature on it. It was I don't see where I think that would actually be the most beneficial that way. No, because we heard that lady before. She made a lot of sense. But no, she did not tell us on that because nobody nobody asked her. But I would I would love for an expert to come

091and tell us what do you mean when you have an employee that has seven years experience compared to one that has 10 year experience. We will look into getting that training. thing is if a sevenyear experience can earn more than a 15 year experience, it's not that that's something that I don't understand with the midpoint, right? That's not happening. So, okay. And we talked about that might come and say we have to get rid of a lot of people. So, let's look at somebody else. No, I think I think she was very I'm just I don't have a clear understanding. No, we haven't had a clear understanding and now so we will work on getting y'all a clear understanding. Yeah, please. All right. So, we are moving on, Miss Mendoz. Sorry. Okay. The 2526 budget

092goals. Of course, we're still aiming and trying to maintain that fund balance. We would love to increase it, but right now, we would just kind of trying to try to maintain there. Um, uh, we're looking at enrollment. Enrollment is declining. So we're, you know, we have to really make sure that enrollment is um tied to our salaries and our uh staffing. So uh currently our ADA is also very low. So that's another thing that we need to work on. principles and to guide us on the budget development. We use the modified zerobased budgeting and we always make sure that we address all the you know compliance and make sure that we're doing you know the transparency that we're doing the coding we're doing the functions and funding all correctly and that we just kind of

093again I have to stress that we have to make sure we adjust for the declining enrollment and the ADA that is very low factors that influence our budget. Of course, is a state and federal funding as we saw. They've kind of, you know, put a hold on some of our federal funding of gener uh we're grateful that they released it, but we have to proceed with very cautions as we go planning um local property taxes. Uh that's also right now I think in special uh uh session. So, that one's going to probably they're going to probably materialize another um homestead exemption is going to increase. Uh again, I stress enrollment trends that's critical to our spending. Uh staffing costs where, you know, we're going to look at the scales, but we got to be real

094cautious with the scales. These are and I'm going to stress these are preliminary scales. We still have to work and make sure we can balance them. and operational costs. Um, maintenance is a big hot topic. It's a lot of maintenance, especially the junior high. So, we're doing our best to address those with the limited funding that we have. Uh, this slide here shows you the revenue from 07 to 24. And if you look from the ' 07 and general fund, we were getting 15.5 million. Right now, um, on 24 is just 22, but we're really not even there. We're looking more at 18 million. So, you know, it's less than 12% increase in, you know, those 18 years. It's it has not kept up with inflation, payroll costs. Oh, that general fund column you're saying

095that is what we're showing that we should be getting but we're not getting. Yeah, we're not going to materialize at 22. So in the past years I mean are were we getting them? What's the past years? I mean those are from pardon me. What's the difference between general and all funds? Those are all your grants including those. Well, in the future, I would think that you're you're if you're telling me we're you're you're showing 22, but you're telling me you're not getting 22. We haven't finished the year. I can't give you the number that, but from the other years, I'm saying, oh, the other years are that's what it's been. So, that is what's documented. That's what I know. Like you're you're showing me this. So, for 2023, you got 20 million. Yes. And you

096got 20 million. Yes. But that includes esser funding in there, right? Depending on the year of when you got it and all that, correct? Okay. So the 22 I'm not done. So the 22 you're you have not finished. But you're saying that that you only have 18 for right now. The 22 I'm sorry the 2024. That's correct. We're still on the 24 year because you're still collecting. Yes. I'm Are you still collecting the taxes? taxes. Basically, we collected all the taxes. We're just still collecting the the TEA. Oh, state revenue the funding. Yes. Okay. I'm sorry. I was just mix I I was like if you're telling me you got 22, but you're saying you haven't gotten but this is just because this year hasn't ended. Correct. So, we're still going to get money from

097TEA. We're still getting money from TEA. We'll get another payment in August. However, that's uh based on the projection of ADA that we did on the bianium. So, okay. And hopefully we won't settle up next. That's correct. Okay. I'm sorry. Okay. Go ahead. Okay. Payroll again. Here's a look at 07 to 24. That's a payroll. The first column shows you the payroll for general fund. The other one is for all funds that includes federal funding. And the payroll isn't going to be affected for federal funding because it's just like those programs like ACE and all that or affected as far as the races. It is going to be affected. how the the 4,000 or 8,000 that we give, we still have to give it to the staff that is a teacher for federal funding, but

098the but the district has to code it in a way that the state's going to pay for that. So, they will pay for that $48,000 essentially. Oh, because the state didn't take that into consideration. I guess they don't know everybody. They can't mandate the federal government to pay extra money. So, we do have some teachers that will a few. Okay. Sorry. Okay. Go on. Okay. And this is just a um a chart that shows the revenue that way you can kind of do a more comparison. And I guess and it states there that you're looking at your ESSER funding that on 2020 that had a big significant if you see that growth it was because of of ESSER funding enrollment trends uh if you look at 2021 all the way to 24 to 25 you

099see that you know there's a significant we keep on dropping each year and uh that is really affecting our funding and and along with the enrollment which makes it worse is the ADA. It also has a big impact. Uh from um 20 2021 to 24 25 we've um declined 116 students. Do we know where they're at? Did they go to other districts or so? We were not honestly last year when we got the data we had students that should have been in OSO that that were not here was like just over a hundred. We were bringing in 300. I think that the the community has not grown. So that's a part of the problem. I mean it's not like we have new families and stuff coming into the district. Um if you think about just

100the population of the district. So that's part of it. Um part of it is some um you know homeschooling or charter schools, but I mean part of the problem is that the community is just not a community that's growing. Our housing is I mean if we didn't have those transfer students are kind of saving us. So I don't we can look at the data again this year but last year we were losing 100 students to other districts but we were gaining over 300 from other districts. So, so do we know now how many uh we're anticipating for next year starting off? Right. I know we're not sure right now we're 300 students ahead of where we were last year at this time in terms of registration, but we don't know if we just got those

101same students to register earlier. So, we really won't I don't think we'll know no until the first week at school because we just have so many people that wait to register. I know we've lost some because I've talked to some of the parents who move their children to other districts. Okay. And this just shows you a chart of how we're, you know, continue to decline. Okay. This is the proposed scale uh for the teachers and as you see uh the prior year, you're going to have the two years. Um prior year we had teachers and librarians. We did move the librarians to the professional scale and um this scale is basically uh has the increase that the state has mandated. Um other than the zero to two years that one it has an increase that

102is going to the district's going to have to pay for that increase. Uh this scale is the professional administrative scale. Um again you'll see the 2425 and then so you can do a comparison to the 2526. Uh in there uh we added the librarians and um we did different adjustments. it wasn't a straight line uh because uh we kind of looked at the positions and the need that it was uh to be able to catch him up. I have a question like if the librarian here uh the librarian uh on that midpoint No, that's not the the question is if they have the the doctors and but they get that extra money, right? Is that added to their base salary, right? To their base salary. So it's not like a separate paid. That's correct. When

103it comes to the administrative, no longer your, you know, your your doctorate, we don't have an extra step. Well, for the librarians, we do that. The librarians, we will Okay. Yeah. For the the librarians, the category that we will that's pretty much the only C and teachers. Teachers and librarians. So So it's like they owe they earn 74,000 84,000. So if they get that 2,000, so it'd be 86,000 or no, it's going to be 84,000. No, it would be the 86. So if you have two people that have the same number of years and one has a doctorate, the one that has the this is teachers and librarians, then the one that has the doctorate would get that extra $2,500. Add it to their base salary. Yeah. What's the uh transition transition coordinator? Um it's

104a position, a special education position. Um Dr. want to explain that position. So what he specifically does is we have to set up plans for students for postsecary. So while they're still in school, they do parent interviews, student interviews. They meet with them with them include what services line for what job employments they want after school once they graduate from school along with setting up specific IEP goals on skills that they'll work on along with the outside employment and setting up those relationships with how to go and apply for a job where do you want to work at what are the things you need to be independent what are how do you get it what are those programs if you have to ride the bus how we use the bus and get our information from

105there. So, it's building those connections with the community along with setting up from that young age to see what it is they want to do postsecondary and build that plan. And each year the student gets reined, make sure that they're on their plan if they need to make the adjustments, also working with the parents and providing those supports. And when does that start? 13. And for our district, since we do have some students younger, for us, we specifically start with all fifth graders and move up. And then our teachers below that will keep like when I grow up, I want to be or something. So that at the end of the year, their summary performance shows the progress throughout their entire high school years. Okay. And then what what is the payroll of specialist? What

106is that? That's our payroll person. That so she has the the specialist is now on the Was it always like that? It's always been that way. Okay. Excellent. And I I like well I'm so just I do like the fact that and I hope that we continue this every year where you showed uh last year's compared to this year so that we could see the incremental uh increase if there if there was one. Uh that way we can be aware. Um and remember this is not necessarily it's not considered a raise. It's just because we got that pot of money. Or is it considered a raise? Oh, well, it's considered a raise, but not that it was it came from our Okay. Yeah, the professionals coming out of our general fund. Remember, just the teachers.

107The only teachers are the only ones. Well, that's just what I just asked you that. So, we're considering it a raise. Yes. Okay. So, it's considered a raise. Oh, I'm saying that that Well, it didn't even necessarily come out of our general fund. You told me it came out of that pot of money that you had. Well, that's still our general fund. I mean, that that's general fund money. Yes. How is that? But that's what that's what general fund is. We're going to give you a a we're going to give you money, right? And but this is not a mandate from by the state that we have to give this money. But this came from the legisl package into the general fund and now we're going to get it from the Okay. Well, I mean,

108still it came from the legislature, but the legislature said that that money was for teachers, right? No, they we did the teachers that that you had to have done it. But I'm saying she also got this pot of money which Yeah. And that's So this is not going to be like a percentage like a 2% 3%. This is going to be a dead set 4,000 for the teachers. teachers, right? And then 8,000 for the ones that have this. Well, well, actually, I mean, they're going to get that. No, I know the auxiliary, but the teachers, the librarians, they're automatically getting it four and eight. The teachers, not the librarians. Yeah, they they they only gave us administrative. Okay. U So, okay. The teachers, they're all going to get either 4,000 or 8,000. So except your

109uh 0 to2 right 0 to2 but okay let's say a 18year teacher will she get the 8,000 or will she'll get the 4,000 midpoint. Okay anyone with five or more years experience is getting the 8,000. Yes. So you can see um we listen to your request. Um and so this is the auxiliary. Yeah, which by the way, Denise isn't here because she's on a vacation, but we desperately, desperately need bus drivers. So, if anyone knows of bus drivers, um it is a huge need right now. We don't have bus drivers. We don't have enough bus drivers now. I found it. Yep, I see them here. Okay. Are they getting the step up or I mean, are you know, we got 15, 17, 20. Are they going to go by the years that they've been here?

110Just Yes. Yes. Yes. Would that also include like the next page, the instructional aids? Correct. So, if one's been here 30 years, she's going to get, right? Mhm. Yeah. But what is she going to get? 30 years. Whatever it says in this. Okay. Well, let me see. I don't see 30 years here. So, instructional aid. I don't see 30 years. Do you does this include instructional aids in this one? This next one I'm sorry the is a little bit smaller so I'm sorry about that. Here's the instructional aid and so instructional aid the minimum there's they're in three categories. The first category is um nonsp specialcial education. So those we don't have too have hardly any we have prek and ISS. Second category is a resource inclusion and then the third category is your adaptive

111ed. Um and that goes back to some of what y'all were saying um last time which is that those are you know the hardest well the mo the terms of those are the ones that are changing diapers doing the feeding doing you know a lot of intensive services. I think there's two here that I think we need to discuss in close session. Okay, that's fine. Okay. All right. So, you're going to go over the instructional aid or is that it on that one? That's it. Any questions as far or if there questions that are that you I know we're going to go into close session. So, yeah. Yeah. Not those. Okay. I do have like on the when you say it's only zero to two but we did give a minimal well we you all

112talked about wanting to do a 3% raise for those zero to two. Okay. So that that incorporated in that well the scale is really the scale right but then let's say you're a z a first year teach or you're a secondy year teacher with us we would give you a 3%. So that that is incorporated in there. Well, when we vote on it basically in August, um then that would be part of the entire budget package. Yes, I know. But it's it's right here 20 it's in the 2526. So again, um I'm sorry people are asking two questions. Yes, it will be there. Um Miss Gutier, it's extra money, but then again, other places we're not getting as much money for our enrollment. What was your question? That you know we got the the ones

113for the teacher but then we got an extra amount of money. What are we doing with that money? What are we going to use it for? I thought we're going to use it. We actually I mean we have to take into account again enrollment in ADA. Just because we're kind of saying we're looks like we're going to get an extra million. It doesn't really mean we're going to get that extra because we're not getting the ADA. Uh and that I asked that question. She got my phone call. We're only we of of this compensation plan we spent what $479,000. That's where we're at right now because I mean every I don't want it to the penny. Well, we're still hiring people so we need to, you know, right? But it's 479,000 right now. But yeah,

114you're asking because yeah, people wanted to know what about that other pot of money, you know, tell us everything that the legislature but then it's what she said. Yeah. Well, we can't spend it all because we're getting less over here8. So, how is it? Do you know how it going? So far, that's what I was sharing was that right now we're three like 300 students ahead of where we were last year, but last year, but we don't know if those 300 students are just students we were going to get anyway and they're enrolling early, like they're just getting their registration. Until everybody's enrolled the first week, six weeks. Yeah, we can, you know. Yeah, I feel like until the first week, there's just so many people that don't think about even don't even think about

115enrolling or registering. They just show up. So, you know, I don't want to see people enrolling already. Yes. Yes. Yeah. But that is a good question because it it it come up because how much you know if your compensation plan is 479,000 so what are you doing with the rest? We're compensating for the fact compensating because we're going to have a low enrollment. And one of the things too that um I guess we can even prepare for you next week. I told Olga, you know, just to give you an idea like a typical year, I don't know what's typical, but like in the 2425 year. Here's what we budgeted for. Here's all the unexpected things happen that we didn't budget for. And so, yeah. So, yeah, let's not even talk about maintenance yet. No, but

116I'm but I'm saying that's the reality, right? That's the reality of what happened. So, um, we'll share we can even share that next week. Yeah. All right. All right. So, any questions? Any other questions on the teacher? Uh, one, Miss Jordan, or any any compensation? I'm sorry. I wanted to share one more thing with y'all. You had asked last um time, so I got the information for you how many people we had that were below minimum w below $15. So currently we have 10 paraprofessionals, 11 auxiliary staff and 14 food service. I guess auxiliary mostly the custodial staff and 14 food service that are were below the min below $15 an hour. But no one is now. Well, we haven't approved it yet, but with this new proposal it begin. Exactly. So that's 35 people

117total that during the 2420 year were below $15 an hour. I think that that's that's tremendous work done, Miss Mendes. I I have to commend y'all because we did I mean that was the opinion of the board. You need to get these people at a $15 at least and even then we all know I know that but it's it's it's compensating with the money that we have. That's that's what we have to spend. And if you I mean they really made a concerted effort to bring those people and not every and that's why you'll probably see gosh they probably you know had an 8% raise. Yeah. Because they needed it and the other ones didn't. Uh because you know you can still make a living off of $65,000. I think it's 27,000 on some of

118those. I know. I know. But there I I really have again I looked at other districts very very I didn't really find anyone honestly that was doing what we're doing. So but we're doing what we're doing and the good news is we get to do this again with another pot of money. So hopefully we can again redirect some of that money to these auxiliary employees. But but but you can't forget about our you know I know the other dilemma is our administrators and then we come to the TIA where TIA teachers are going to make more money than than our administrators and that's the other dilemma that we have for TIA. But I'm like but we don't pay for TIA do we? We don't pay a penny from our district. Well yes we do. I

119just finished telling you same thing benefits they they give us the amount. They don't give us the benefits. They don't give us the benefits. The TRS we paid 500 thou almost 500,000. Yeah. And that's one of those things that she said and they get let's say uh 25,000 uh comes out of our fund. No, they give them the 27. But who pays the benefits for your payroll and all that? Okay. They forgot to tell us that. They forgot. Yeah. No, they didn't forget. They didn't want to tell us. All right. So any uh was that it miss more? So any other questions on these compensation plans because uh we will go into close session but I mean I think for the majority all our questions have been answered. Uh we still have 5A 6A before.

120Okay. I thought you were already going to close session. No no no no. I just want to make sure that if you have any other questions that can be done have a question in close session. We need to do them because we need to move on. All right. Um, thank you, Miss Mendes and Miss Moore. We're going to move on to agenda item five, consent agenda 5 A, B, C, and D, the approval of the board meeting minutes. Uh 5A1, the special board meeting minutes, Thursday, June 5th, 2025 at 5:30. 5 A2, regular board meeting minutes, Monday, June 23rd, 2025 at 5:30. 5B, the approval of the monthly investment report for June 30th, 2025. And 5C, the approval of the general fund financial report for June 30th, 2025. I need uh a motion and a

121second for agenda items, consent agenda items 5A, 1, and 2, and 5B, and 5 C. Madam President, I make a motion that we approve the consent agenda A1, 2, B, and C as recommended by administration. I'll second this. Yes, Charlie. All right, Miss Jordan has made a motion and seconded by Mr. Ardondo. We'll go ahead and vote. Okay. Liz Gutierz, I Jordan I. Priscilla. Albert Riad. Hi. Gonzalez. I Oscar Edonto. Hi, Elma Rodriguez. All right, hold on. Hold on. Let me keep up. All right, this motion passes 51. Oh, I'm sorry. I am. I'm sorry. 51. I forgot. Okay, we're going to move on to agenda item six. This is an item for discussion, deliberation, andor action. 6A is to discuss and consider taking action on the West ISD student code of conduct for the

1222025 2026 school year. Miss Alvarado, good evening ladies and gentlemen. This is the time of the year that we must pass the student code of conduct prior to the time of the first day of school. This the student code of conduct is our response to chapter 37 which is the discipline code, Texas Education Code. It identifies circumstances by which a student may be disciplined, removed from a classroom, uh put in out of school suspension, uh DAP, expulsion, whatever has to be done in progressive sanctions. Violations of the code of conduct are taken from the teaching staff but given to the administration. So a kid does something in a classroom, it's referred to the administrator. They refer to the student code of conduct for disciplinary consequences. Changes to the 2526 student code of conduct are as

123follows. Out of school suspensions are now allowed in some cases in students K through2. This has not been allowed previously. The reason for this is because of a number of drug offenses, weapon offenses, and violent offenses of smaller children that they we are seeing in the country. I'm sure the board remembers the situation by which the young child in another state brought a weapon to a classroom and shot a teacher. This is the actual end result of that situation. Each state looking to see what needed to be done. Miss Albero, did you uh uh make a sheet of the changes? No, ma'am. Okay. I I would recommend that for the following year. Yes. Yeah. And we're trying to do that. I know that there's been a lot of requests because we are trying to do

124that to where we can see where are they 95. It just gives you the listing of the changes that have made on the in the Yes. On the summary sheet. Summary sheet there is a list of the changes that were made. Yes. So these are the ones that you're going to be discussing. Yes, ma'am. That's what's within the template. putting those are the four major changes that were in the student code from last year. Okay. I didn't see that. So, okay. Yeah, because I mean we're not going to read the whole thing again. That's why I put it here for you just to see the four changes that were made. Okay. So, go over that again. Number one. Yes. out of school suspensions for children in grades K through two. Drug offenses, weapon offenses are

125severe disruption offenses in a persistent Well, that's what I want to see on that page. So, I do want to see it for next year to where you're putting some of those specifics. That way, we we we've read this. We'll give you examples, ma'am. Is that what you're right? That way the board Oh, yeah. I read about that or whatever. Okay. Thank you. I can do that. No problem. Thank you. Okay. Virtual D AE option. This is the one that we simply do not have a tremendous amount of information on yet. What the legislature and the state is are saying is that if you put a student in disciplinary alternative, there is a possibility that we could place them at home and place them in a virtual situation. I will tell you we have had

126some preliminary discussion regarding that. And that is um probably not something that we would do very readily to say the least. Um I'm when I I've been trained in the past three weeks on these new changes. I will tell you that that is a grave concern throughout the state and putting them in a virtual DAE. The reason for that is twofold. sometimes large numbers of students in your DAP that you simply don't have room for or such violent offenses that they need to take them out of circulation for a period of time. That is not something that we would readily do in this district. Consequences of vaping. As you know, several years ago, House Bill 3 basically said that any vaping we would place the student in DAP for a minimum of 30 days. That

127caused vast difficulties throughout the state. So, as the legislature has met this time, a firsttime offense, you can place a student 10 days in ISS. You could place them x amount of days in ISS, but it has to be progressive. So basically as we are looking we can utilize ISS for a kid that let's say first time offense okay got into it somebody gave it to them whatever the case may be we do not have to take them out of circulation for 30 days anymore which helps us in our academic situation and I know it helps us reduce our numbers in DAP because as we looked at our data that's who's in there are kids that are vaping So the state has now given us a little leeway to work with. And the fourth change

128of which we will also be discussing in the following requires districts to now ban personal de uh wireless devices. Phones, smartwatches, any communication device are banned during a school day. We of course will get into that discussion shortly. But that was one of the legislative changes that are required of all school districts in the state of Texas with this 89th legislative session. Different school districts of course have done it in different ways and we'll continue with that discussion. But at this point in time, I am asking the board to approve the student code of conduct for the 2025 2026 school year as we get prior to the first day of school. Okay. Any questions, Miss Jordan? No. Miss Gutierrez. No. Mr. Ardono, now that we have a definite yes from the legislature, are we including

129that with the people that that are now uh registering as part of the packet? I'm sorry. Uh well, the the especially the the cell phone policy. But we have to wait officially to y'all approve it tonight and then we'll but I'm doing the town hall meeting on Thursday specifically. Um but we've been posting it all over social media. I think every other district has so pretty sure that um anyone that's had new I mean it's been everywhere but yes we're going to continue to let people know. Even at the campus levels are we going to have some kind of posters or something? Yes sir. Yes sir. I have seen it on social media. Right. and we will talk about how we're planning on putting that into play. Okay, thanks. I I I would I have

130something to say on that uh phone policy. Uh when you have your town hall meeting, this part right here of the changes of the code of conduct one through four with the policy for the phone or the phone uh should be stapled together and the law from the state of Texas staple all together and give it to each and everyone that comes That way they all have a copy of it. They can't say, "Well, we never got it." And uh maybe I think we're still going to have a lot of problems. I really believe we will have a lot of problems with the phone. I talked to some students from Westo uh not last week and they're saying you can't take my phone away from me. I think you know I've gone into I mean

131differenti situations throughout the last few weeks not just west to oh when TMO was over here for we were doing the SOS things when I went to some place and I mean everyone is saying it's going to be a challenge this year it's going to be a challenge. I've just returned from training with law enforcement on law enforcement that serves school campuses and I will tell you that this was the main topic of concern going into this situation and what was their role. Of course, it's the school role but you know how how can it get to that point in that situation? What happens to students that are in the BI unit that hit teachers, kick teachers and all that? Do where do they gets sent into? If they're already in the BI unit, that's

132a behavior, right? Unit that we've done specialized DAPs this year, but specialized DAPs where it's like DAP. Okay. That's what I wanted to go see if we can send Not with Yeah, we can send them. You can't send them with the rest of the kids. What? But the K through two, you can put them like if there's three high school kids, you can put them in there. You cannot put them in a DP. Yeah. No, ma'am. Okay. I didn't want that. No, ma'am. I don't mind. Okay. Mr. Arondo. No, I'm already Oh, I'm sorry, Miss Gonzalez. Okay. So, uh I just want to make it clear. I'm sorry, Mr. Varial. No questions. Okay. You you you remind me, Mr. Vadal, if I by Ipass you, I'm really really sorry. Um, so this is going to

133be attached once it's approved by the board to the student code of conduct, right? This is the student code of conduct. Yes, ma'am. This Oh, this one is. Yes, ma'am. But I'm I'm talking specifically about the cell phone partner. Yes, ma'am. that will be included in it will also be included in the student handbook uh discipline chart everything that we have. Yes, ma'am. So, okay. Everything of the students actually return these things. Done girl. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. Okay. So, uh the changes the changes can you're also going to be putting that hopefully I mean the changes ma'am I do not I don't write the template. Okay. We go in and we answer. But I want the changes in because Westo is making What I'm saying is the template is designed by the state based

134on the new law. Yeah, I understand that. So, it's in there. Yes, ma'am. But, you know, this is what's going to happen for the most part on your student code of conduct. It's going to get thrown in the trash. I don't need to read that. But I I would want to put that highlight on there. Yes. To tell them, hey, I know you're not going to read the whole thing, right? But I would like to let you know these are the changes that are coming about for the 2526 school year. And as each campus comes into session, I know that the principles have grade level meetings with the students as well. So of course, it will be reemphasized that way as well along with uh parent teacher meetings. um you know everything every way we

135can put it out there. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. And exactly any way that we can put it out there. But if we can put these changes, these are the changes take into consideration because everybody knows. Yeah. It's going to be a hard for meet the teacher too. It's going to be can't we'll have the detailed for meet the teacher so that everyone that comes back in their Okay. Here's your schedule. Here's the cell phone. Here's everything. Yes, ma'am. Yeah. Okay. If there are no further questions, I need a motion for agenda item 6A. A motion that we approve the WSD code of conduct for the 2025 2026 school year. Second. All right. A motion has been made by M Mr. Adono and seconded by Miss Jordan uh for agenda item 6A. I am going to vote

136yes, but I do have some questions on a lot of the things that are on here. Oh, have not been explained. Okay, let I'm sorry. Let let me back up. I I forgot to go back to her. Go ahead, Miss Gutier. No, that's okay. Let's go. No, that's okay. I just I'm going to vote yes, but there are some questions that I think Well, what are you going to speak to the superintendent? I I'll I'll send her an email on it. Well, you can ask your question right now. I'm making time for you. I apologize. It's so cold. No, no, that's okay. I want in here, ma'am. It's good to room. It is kind of Oh, it's going to be cold. You already know that. It's going to be hurting in there. Okay. All right,

137then. Uh, a motion has been made by Mr. Ardondo and seconded by Miss Jordan for agenda item 6A. We're going to go ahead and vote. Okay. Liz, yes. Bernie Jordan. Priscilla. Oops. Albert Read. Yes. Gonzalez. I Oscar. I Rodriguez. I. This motion passes 6. All right. Let's move on to agenda item 6B. discuss and consider taking action on the PASBY proposed policy FNCE local, the student conduct, personal communication devices, electronic devices, and the West Coast ISD cell phone guidelines procedures for the 2025 2026 school year. Oh, this is the specific one. Okay. Yes, ma'am. This is the policy. Okay. to see the you have FNC local here, but local is supposed to be handinhand with the law itself. Do you have that copy of that policy? I do not have legal in front of me,

138ma'am. I want to see what it says. So maybe it's um I think it must be that when they made the law, it says that the law says that each school district will will um approve their own local policy. That's what the law says. So we have to go hand in hand with Okay. So this is definitely direction from TASBY. And I'm assuming for this there's just a local because that's what the law says. The law says that the school district based on the law will develop their own local policy. So Tazby didn't put illegal. Correct. No, ma'am. Tazby didn't put illegal. No, exactly. Why didn't they put illegal? Because it's supposed to be we all our policies should go hand inhand with legal policies. There's I We can If you look at Do we

139have the text of the law right here? Do you put the text of the law? If not, I can get you a text of the law. But the actual text of the law says school that the legislature is directing school districts to write their own local policy. That there's not to me I guess what to me what that means is that the first step is districts need to create their own local policy. Well, because it's a totally new right exactly thing that has come up. So I'm I'm more than sure it'll it'll have a legal once it's been established. My guess is would be within a year you'll see some type of situation. Yeah. Yes. This is what the directive of the law has said. The law says. Yes ma'am. Okay. Um and one other

140clarifying point I think I mentioned it just to reinforce this is the district with um what TA has said is that we are not allowed to charge any money for these phones. Oh, you can't and not charge one cent. And that from June to July when we came back from break, that was one thing that came out and I thought I think we all said, "Well, that can't be right." And then we looked it up and it was correct. I take it away back in your backpack at the end of the of the school year at the end of the day. Well, she's going to go over what what propos I'm looking it up anyway. The polic, the proposed policy and the procedures protocol for our cell phone policy in Westoso is based off Texas

141House Bill 1481. This of course has been under up under consideration since the legislature actually started and it was quite a a endeavor to get this through. So basically what you're going to be seeing in front of you would be the local policy FNCE policy that we will be asking you to look at and also the procedures that we will follow in West OSO for the 2526 school year. I will also tell you that we did pretty extensive research as this is all we're hearing all this is coming out. I'm I'm having conversations Miss Moore is having conversations with other districts to see kind of what they're going to do. Uh what districts actually I actually called another state who had actually done this previously and I spoke at length with some principles there. So

142this is not like we have just come up with this. We did a tremendous amount of research. So, if you look at the proposed policy, FNCE local, a student shall not use a personal communication device on school property during the school day. While on school property, the student shall store any personal communication device in accordance with administrative regulations. A student who violates this policy or regulations will be subject to discipline in accordance to the student code of conduct that you have just passed. An authorized district employee shall confiscate a student's personal communication device that is used in violation of this policy. If it is not retrieved, the district shall dispose of the device providing notice required. A student shall be authorized to use a personal communication device on school property during the school day only

143under the following circumstances. The students use is necessary for implementation of the students IEP or 504 plan or similar program or plan and we would require documentation. The student's use is required due to a documented need based on a directive from a qualified physician. The students use is necessary to comply with a health or safety requirement imposed by law or as part of the district or campus safety protocols. Superintendent shall develop regulations to implement this policy annually. The superintendent shall report back to the board. So this is the policy portion for West Oso. Is this was this implemented on a template as you said before by TASBY? Yes. Both the both the um attorney and Tazby and Tammy Jordan have looked at it. Yes, we have put it through everything we can think of. What

144about our attorney? Yes, both of them. Okay. Yes, ma'am. Okay. If you will turn the page, you will see. I just have a question on when you say the students use uh you know either by the IEP or the 504 or based on need. Um, so let's say you have a nonverbal autistic student. Mhm. And that is his way of communicating, but that would be addressed in the ARD situation. And but they would have other kind of assisted technology. They don't Yeah, they don't use they wouldn't want to. Oh my No, my son's going to need his phone because if we haven't had a history of that, right? No, it would be. No, I need a communication device that's provided by special education. That's assist of technology. That's not to there's there wouldn't be a

145need. Yeah. Okay. And honestly, the comm Yeah, that's kind of much more sophisticated than a smartphone. Okay. But I you know I I saw Miss where it says um by students with documented medical needs. Okay. Um couldn't they go to the nurse and use the phones there? Right. But we haven't found one yet that we would consider yet. You don't have Okay. I I'm assuming we have IEPs. We have lots some students on 504s and all that. Um I hope that we don't see it. But you know, I could easily take my grandchild to the doctor and said, "Doctor, she needs to have her phone." You know, it's gonna be it's a mental issue. Noal. It doesn't say mental health, and that's definitely not the intention. a child that one example I saw was a

146child that needed to track their blood sit sugar. They were unstable um diabetic and so they did it and on their phone they recorded their blood sugar levels. That would be the that's the example I heard. I don't know if I've heard anything else. But there's also devices already for diabetics like that that it'll give you your history. But maybe that's considered a smart their own personal smart. No, it's strictly for that, right? But but this policy remember is is prohibiting all communication devices. So maybe that would be kind of considered a communication device and it says tablet their own tablet because I know they can use the school tablet that the schools provide tablets. Okay. What makes you think they can't contact their parent through the school tablet? We understand that unfortunately. So what

147happens with that? Are you does not address that? Oh, the state addresses this and this is what I must address before. I think kids are going to be very smart because I think kids are very smart already because one kid told me, "Well, what if we bring walkie-talkies?" I said, "What? I've never heard of that." You know, those will be a little bit obvious. Yeah. Like, yeah, walkie-talkies. Yeah. But, you know, our kids are smart. All our kids are smart. We can only work off of what the wording is. And that's why we bring it to you right now. Now a year from now I may come back to you and say okay they've sent us something else right now this is what they've sent us to work with. So if you look at the

148cell phone policy protocol itself the guidelines and procedures you will see that we have placed of course the legal basis and the implement implementation timeline. Um we've talked about the medical need type situations. So they may bring their devices to campus. They may not have them out from the time they enter the campus until the end of the school day. They must be turned off or silenced before the first bell. They must store them in their backpacks or pocket wherever the case may be. It cannot be out. Devices may not be used or visible during instructional periods, including during lunchtime or in hallways. Any calls or messaging must be handled through the school public phone system in the office. So, just like when we were growing up, if you needed to make a phone call

149home or you had something, you go to the office. So, enforcement level one, first violation, teacher request. So the students asked to hand over the device. If the student complies, the device is taken to the office, locked up, and returned to the student at the end of the school day after the instructional day is complete. So I want to make sure that that's that was in there. The parent has sent an email reminding them of the policy and the consequences. Second violation, device confiscated and held until the end of the following school day. Device returned to the student or parent only. Students receive a verbal warning and counseling about the policy compliance. Parent will receive a phone call from the administration. Third violation, device is held for three school days. device released only to parent

150guardian. Student is assigned one day of ISS in school suspension under the code of conduct for failure failure to follow directives. At this point, it begins not to be a cell phone issue as it is following directive issue. The parent will meet with campus administration. Fourth and subsequent violations. Device is held for seven days, released only to a parent or guardian at central office. So that phone is then transferred to central. Student receives three days of ISS and will meet with district administration, most likely me, Miss Moore, Miss Gomez. Okay. So, refusal to comply. Level one, principal involvement. The student will remain in ISS until they turn over the phone. and a parent phone call. Level two refusal, principal involvement. Student will remain in ISS till they turn over the phone and they will serve

151an extra day of ISS. The following day, a parent meeting at the campus level. Level three, parent meeting with the student services office. In other words, they'll be in my office. Three days ISS parent meeting at district level. So basically as you look at the alignment all disciplinary outcomes are anchored with the westo ISD student code of conduct which was our previous topic infractions such as refusal to surrender repeated defiance or insubordination are processed according to policy sections covering non-compliance and disruptive behavior oss out of school suspension DAP placement loss of privileges follow procedural safeguards under the student code of conduct. So at that point it would be progressive sanctions as they go through. We do have an implementation um process timeline because we know that kids have always had their phones. So we also

152know that it's going to take some time to change that behavior. So from August 12th through the 15th, no phones are taken up. It is a continual education process. Teachers teach the procedures, students receive the updates. So they continuously teach that week. August 18th through the 22nd. Teachers take the phones and turn them into the office. Students may retrieve cell phones from the office at the end of the day. By August 25th to the end of the school year, we are looking at full implementation. So you're allowing them to use their phones the first week coming back. No, we didn't say. What we're saying is we're saying no phones taken up. They're going to be taken up. It says, "Well, no, I'm sorry." In other words, it's going to take us a while to get

153through to them. Yeah, I I understand that, but I mean, if you're saying no phones are going to be taken up, we're going to give warnings at that point. They'll tell them you need to go ahead and put your phone away, right? For those three days, we're just going to simply say you need to put your phone away because to the teachers teaching the class that they should be teaching. Okay. Again, we have to have a plan. There's no magical way of getting you can't bring the phone and that's it. Period. Teachers are there to teach, not to be playing with, "Hey, Johnny, I need your phone because Johnny is is not going to comply the first week or whatever three days." So, we're going to keep revisiting it. We can say, "Don't bring your

154phones in at all." And guess what? Johnny's still going to bring his phone in. He can bring his phone in, but we already know that I have to agree with that because that's why I'm saying the first week, that's why I was saying it. The first week you are you're basically yay you implement it implement it immediately. We're doing this. Oh Johnny I'm so sorry but you know we're going to start a new law. No you know what you have discussed this with your teachers and administrators. They have had their in. Yes, absolutely. Speak again. Again, like the dress code that's not followed on a daily basis talking about cell phoners don't have time. Well, the reality is when this is passed, there's no way we there's no way, right? We're going to try to

155support the teachers as much as possible. Support the teachers in teaching not having that's what we're doing. So the thing is no matter what the teachers are going to be involved because even if we took one phone up they might whip out another phone. So of course we're all going to be well it's it's gonna they did that you know they they've done it. It's like dress code when dress code when we first implemented dress code many years ago it was like okay the first week we're not no you're going to implement it because that is what we have done. You got to implement it the first day of so this is the administrative decision so you can vote against Good to know. So, you know what? Uh, your administrators, your teachers, it's just like

156when we implemented the IDs, it took them a while to get the get it in their heads. Same thing with this. Okay. But look at it. If you look at the date by the end of August, two weeks, we're dead on. And there's no more back, forth, up, down. Here it is. We've given you opportunity by which to adjust your thinking pattern. Now, there is no discussion. This is what it is. And to be honest, realistically, the law says th the law says 90 days after September 1st. So, we're we're being a lot more aggressive about it than most school districts because I think it'll be a lot harder to start. A lot harder to start 90 days after the school year started. So, we're going to start day one. I mean, all those school

157districts that started in July, they're having to completely they're going to have to somehow regroup midstream. So, I think we're going to be in a better position than other districts. Yeah. started in July. Some schools just some schools have Yeah. Let me see. May Yeah. I just uh we started two weeks ago. Yeah. But we started two weeks ago. If you have the consent of the administrators and your teachers, I mean, because they're the ones that are going to be in the nitty-gritty with this. Uh like I said, we did a lot of research. We talked to a lot of people. This is something that Miss Moore and I have been going back and forth on since March, actually. Yeah. trying to take a look and see how we could actually implement this with the

158least amount of difficulty and how tight we were going to be. But it's going to be hard. I mean, there's no question. I'm aware every time I'm meeting with administrator, meeting with students and meeting with staff and telling them this is going to be, you know, this year this is going to be a difficult challenge. So, but I think it's well worth it because we're going to have a lot more instructional time, a lot less distraction. I think so. I think it's it is good law. It's a good law. I just I in my opinion our teachers are here to teach, not to be constantly Johnny, put your phone up. You know, just let's hit it right there. We could also do situations where, you know, if we need to regroup and bring and change

159the policy, we can do that. Also, we would certainly have the right to say, you know, um Belinda Gonzalez, you've um you just you are you've lost your privilege to have your phone at school, period. So we can do that as a consequence for sure. Yeah. And I think that it's going to be a working document. You are going to come back to this because you are going to have those students that you're going to have to tell them. You're not bringing your phone. I already know have parents in my office. Believe me, we've already kind of have thought this out. But it's like anytime you're changing behavior and whether it's an adult or a kid, people don't like change. Well, I think you also have to focus on the fact because that was the

160first thing that came into my mind when you're saying, "Oh, you're going to you think you're going to take their phone away after all this you've allied thing and everything and and I know Miss Moore and I talked about it, but you all are the ones that are here. So, you do have to be, you know, proactive about it and do what you got to do. But to me as a parent, if I was a parent, that's the argument that I would come to you like you're going to take my child's phone away after what happened in Yuvaldi, after all that. You're going to take my And my response to that as a parent, as a parent, as a parent of children that graduated here in Oso and now as the executive director, my comment

161was, ma'am, you know, for you to even be in my office, your child has violated this policy x amount of times. Okay, so here's the deal. If they have their phone, they keep it out of sight. It It's quite simple. You know, you want them to keep their phone because of safety and security, then they keep it out of sight. There there is no give here in this situation. You're not literally taking it away. They're not going to have But the reality is you're going to follow the rules and regulations as passed by this school board. That's the first thing that I thought of. You're going to have arguments from those parents. But sometimes what I find Miss Gonzalez just said it's the law and we're going to abide by the law. We don't have

162any options. Yeah. Take it up with Greg Abbott. It's the law. And a lot of times by the time they reach my office, it's like, oh man. Okay. You know, okay, I've talked to the assistant principal. I've talked to the principal. Now I'm having to go to the district. Okay, this is serious. Yeah. Yes, it is serious. Yes, ma'am. Well, I'm glad y'all have taken all that into consideration because it is it is going to be, I think, a doozy. Yes, we will definitely. Okay. Do I have any other questions on this agenda item 6B? All right. If I don't, I need a motion and a second for agenda item 6B. Madame President, I make a motion that we approve the CASBY proposed policy FCE local the student conduct personal communication devices electronics devices and

163the Westo ISD cell phone uh guidelines procedures as recommended for the uh 2526 school year. We'll second. All right, a motion has been made by Mrs. Jordan and seconded by Mr. Ardondo for agenda item 6B. We'll go ahead and vote. I like the policy, but I don't like the way it's stated. So, but I'm going to go ahead and vote yes, but I have a lot of concerns with it uh waiting two weeks to be implemented. Rachel, I [Music] Albert. Yes. Oh, hold on. Mr. Aronda, I mean, Mr. Vald, did you have any comments? No, no, ma'am. I'm good. Okay, you just you let me know. Tell me. Don't forget me, Miss Rodriguez. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Okay. I'm sorry. [Music] Gonzalez ID. And it's bad because you can't see him. I know. I This

164motion passes. 6. We're going to move on to agenda item 6 C. Discuss and consider taking action regarding the board approval of a delegate and an alternate in the Texas Association of School Boards TASBY 2025 delegate assembly. This is the one in Houston, right? Yes. Yes, ma'am. Okay. So, thank you ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Miss Alvarado. Thank y'all for your hard work on this policy. Good luck. Huh? Do I take this one on? Okay. So, I need a I need Oh, let me get on the Let me get on the agenda. I'm sorry. Volunteer. Yes. I need a volunteer. This board volunteer. No, I hear that. For a delegate and an alternate to serve on the TASBY delegate assembly. The board is to select a delegate and an alternate for the 2026. You and

165Liz, Mr. Alvarado. I'll do it, ma'am. Okay. Is that No, Miss Miss Gutierrez has already I'm Miss Le volunteered. Miss Yeah, Miss Gutierrez has volunteered. Uh, it's a half-day assembly. Local trustees from across Texas provide crucial direction to the TASBY board and staff in representing members interests before state and national policy makers. Yeah, I think we've all done it. Uh, and uh, thank you, Liz, for volunteering. Do I have an alternate who would like to do it? I think Miss Well, she's not here, but can I still get her? Miss Vela had voiced a concern to even go to the master trustee uh, leadership school. That's a waste of time and money, ma'am. I don't think so. Okay, let me see. Uh, so can I nominate her? She's not here. Let's nominate her and then

166she can repeat. That's what she just gonna be here. Would you like to do it, Mr. I did it last? You did it. How about you? You No, if Miss Fella doesn't want to do it, Mr. How about you? I respectfully decline. Oh, I I really would like to nominate Miss Vela because she did uh about the TASBY leadership and I I I I spoke highly of it. I think it's I think you learn a lot. You learn a lot more than what we learn. The only thing is they travel to different districts. Yeah. But that's that's all part of the networking part. But that's what we network when we go to the conventions. Well, yeah, but they do it on a monthly basis. I don't know. It's a waste of money. Casby leadership is

167not on. It's this delegate. Okay, let's do um So, can we Let's do that. Okay. So, I do I need to go quick and see. But if she doesn't want to do it, then what do we do? Well, Mr. said he he said he'll do it. He would I'll do if she doesn't do it, I'll do it. Oh, but I know that she she talked about it to me. Let's have a chat. So I need to hear a motion and a second to approve. Our delegate is Miss Gutierrez and our alternate is Miss Vela. Okay. I recommend that the board of trustees put Liz Gutierrez as the official voting delegate and Priscilla Vela as the alternate to the 25 2025 TASBY delegate assembly. Second. All right. A motion has been made to recommend uh Liz

168Gutierrez as the official voting delegate and Priscilla as the alternate to the 2025 TASBY delegate assembly. We'll go ahead and vote. Mis, Jordan, Illa, Albert, I I Okay, this motion passes 6. All right, we are going to move on to close session. Agenda item 7 A and B. Close session, government code section 551.074, personnel matters, the evaluation, employment, reassignment, duties, discipline, dismissal of a public officer or employee, or to hear a complaint or charge against an officer or employee. 7A is pursuant to Texas government code section 551.074 the deliberation regarding the recommend recommendation of the Westa High School assistant principal and TEA certification waiver 7B is pursuant to Texas government code section 551.074 074 the discussion regarding personnel as related to employment evaluation or specific duties of a district employee. Is this going to cover?

169I think so. Okay. All right. What time? I know. Hold on. Okay. All right. The time is 8:06 and we are going into close session. CCI is doing it August 11th, the day they start school. Doing what? The the phone policy. I just looked them up. And then Maitri is doing it. Then Matri is doing it um September 1st. that you put on top was 369. I was going to try to get one to donate to the school, but I haven't uh it won't come in on time for for the convocation, but I could get it for something else, maybe. Okay, close session. Open session. All right, we're going to move on to agenda. We're going to move on to agenda item 8A. Open session. Oh, I'm sorry, Mr. Be right there. Well, it is

1709:18 and we are in open session. We're moving on to agenda item 8A. this uh we're going to take action on the recommendation of the Westo High School assistant principal and TEA certification waiver. I need a motion and a second for agenda item 8A. I make a motion that we approve the uh high school principal and the waiver as recommended by administration assistant principal. assistant principal. I mean, assistant principal for the 25 26 school year. Is he on there? Yeah, he's not on. Okay, you second it, Mr. Gundle. I'll second it. But nobody Nobody I was going to second, but it's okay. Go ahead. All right. A motion has been made. What? His picture's on there. Is he on here? That's what I'm saying. No, that's Byron. No, that's not him. Oh, I thought I

171thought you meant by. Motion was made by who? Okay. A motion has been made by Miss Jordan and seconded by Mr. Ardondo for agenda item 88. We're we're going to go ahead and vote. Okay. Gutierrez. Nay. Because I feel that as a district we even though it's only two that we've done to give them certificates, waiver of certificates, when we have people applying that are already certified. I think that's kind of sending a message that I don't like that message and so my vote is nay. Okay. Noted. Shy Jordan I. Priscilla's absent. Uh Albert. Vena Gonzalez. I Oscar. I Rodriguez wait I This motion passes. Four. 41. Four 51 isn't it? 1 2 3 4 Mr. V is not on. Mr. Vial, are you on? Okay. No, that's Miss Mo said he wasn't. Okay. He

172never got back on. Okay. All right. We're moving on to agenda item 8B. Uh we're going to take action regarding the district compensation plan. If there are no further questions, I need uh moist. We voted on it, right? No, yeah, no action. So, there is no action taken on this because we're still we're still going to Is this still on the next meeting? Okay, got it. Okay. It's on the next meeting in August. We have to pass the budget before the end of August. Yes. I'm so sorry. Um, I was just requesting that we move that meeting to the 18th on the 25th, but if anything was to happen, lightning storm or anything. Yeah. And if something happened on the 25th, we'd be in trouble. So, we want to move it to the 8th on

173that date. It's too close to for us to then readjourn. I mean, have another meeting after the 25th. It's too close. There's any issues that come up. we don't have time to pass the budget or they just want to move it one week earlier and and we won't be able to have payroll because whenever we have the new employees we pay them on August the 31st we won't be able to pay the okay okay that's fine all right we don't need a that's not an action letter she's just letting you know that August the 18th just to make room I thought maybe you were expecting a storm of some kind in case there's some just in Hey, unforeseen. Just remind us. Yes. Yes. I'm going to have Diane give us We're going to work and

174I work calendar. So, updated one of these. Okay. An up. Yeah. A calendar of events. All right. So, and that's going to include all your superintendent update events. Do you want to go over them or we we read? No, y'all. I mean, everything is here for if you want to come on Thursday. Um, it's She wrote 5:30. Thursday. It's at 6. It's her town hall meeting. Town hall meeting at 6 o'clock at JFK. And um and then district convocation is next Monday at 8:30. Um well, you can get there. It will start at 8:30. Breakfast will start at 7:30. Brett, where is that at? The junior high. Uhhuh. And then we're having that strategic round table. So, we get to have another meeting together um next Monday. 7 a.m. Dennis, I will send it out

175tomorrow. We'll we'll send it out via email and then we'll do littleies uh cell phone screenshots too and make it up late. They're so hard to turn off. Uh and your town hall meeting really at six o'clock at JFK. Six o'clock at JFK. Yes. Okay. Make that notation. You're going to send us an update. We're going to have um on the 4th. No, it's convocation. Oh, okay. In the morning, 8:30. Oh, yes. But we do have a special board meeting because Yes. In the evening is that strategic roundt. Yeah. With her administrative team again. Okay. A chance to do a deep dive. Oh my goodness. All right. Deep dive into the ocean and the West Joseph calendar events will be coming out once Miss Moore and Miss Jackson have worked on it. That way you'll

176know everything that's going to happen in August. Okay. The time is ready. 9:23 this meeting is adjourned. Thank you. Thank you ladies. Thank you.