001Cc The time is now 6 o'clock and this regular meeting of the El Campo Independent School District Board of Trustees is now called to order. Let the record show that this meeting was duly posted in corner with section 551043 and we have a quorum of members present. If everyone would stand at this time, I'd say an opening prayer and then the Pledge of Allegiance. Dear heavenly father, we give you thanks and pray for your continued blessings for our schools and community. We ask that you bless all those who work every day to bring quality education to all our students. Please also guide us tonight as we discuss and decide the important school business before us. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to
002the republic for which it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Public comment. Do we have anybody signed up for public comment? Okay, we're going to move along then to rec recognition. Yes, sir. board members. Uh we we love to bring you this opportunity and so right now we have our middle school technology student association state qualifiers and I think Sandy is going to do the initial introduction of Miss Guthrie. I will I'm actually going to introduce our sponsor. Um Miss Holly Guthrie has been or Mrs. Holly Guthrie has been doing TSA at the middle school for several years now. We're extremely fortunate. um our kids get to go and compete in the seriously the most um unique and interesting type of competitions. There are so many different categories of
003what they can compete in. I've this is my third or fourth time had the opportunity to go and judge at the what is the region level, the area level. Um and it's just amazing. It's amazing the rubrics and the facility that we're at is ginormous and the type of um STEM competitions that you just wouldn't even think you wouldn't even think that they're competing in that. And so again, Ms. Guthrie has um assembled a great team and we had some state qualifiers. We didn't have any national qualifiers this year, which is kind of unusual for Ms. Guthrie, but we made a great showing at state. So, I'm going to let her introduce the the students. All right. So we have um actually two teams and a single person. So let me get my team of
004inventions and innovations. This is Sebastian Gonzalez, Jayvyan Fuentes. Come right here, gentlemen. Moreno, and we're going to put you front and center on camera to face everybody. They competed at the uh regional level and placed second at regions. And then they went on to state and placed 11th at state. So even though we don't they're thinking, "Oh my gosh, that's not anything." It's really amazing that they made it that far competition level. All right. Then we have our electrical applications team. Well, before we do, can we go ahead and give them their little Sure. Yeah. On a Friday. Good job, guys. And Miss Guthrie, if you wouldn't mind just telling everybody their names again as you hand them out. All right. So, I have Noah Garcia here on the end, Kadyn Moreno, Jayvyan Fuentes, and
005Sebastian Gonzalez. You fold your the top part back so we can see. Open it up so we can see your picture. We want to see the Open it. You can just fold it back. Turn it so everybody can see it. There you go. Perfect. Yeah. Parents, if you'd like to take pictures while we're doing that. Okay. Be proud of There you go. Here we go. Three, two, one. Thank you. Yeah. What did you say, Holly? These guys did inventions and innovations. Smile. So, they actually went through the engineering design process to create an item. And it was, guys, tell them about it. It was a recycled material. And what else? Who's Who's going to be the spokesman? you got chosen. So, um what we used was recycled materials and basically we had to build something
006out of recycled materials to help um improve stuff in the household a household items. Basically, we had to help improve things better, make them cheaper and more affordable for better communities and families. So, what did you make? So, we made a cardboard projector. A what? Cardboard projector. a cardboard projector. So, they took items that were recyclable and then they turned them into a household item to make the world better. That's awesome. Congratulations. All right, so let's get our electrical applications team. Yeah, you guys will be coming back when we get the big picture, so you're not done yet. Cadyen Baldwin and Liam Vasquez. These guys also placed second at regionals and then they went on to state and placed sixth at states. There you go. Okay, you're gonna open it up. What did they do?
007They had to take a test over um electrical theory and understanding how circuit works um and do really well at that. And then once they did that, the semi-finalist was actually building a circuit on a breadboard. Wow. Yeah, I'll hop in here. Thank you. Don't leave yet. I think somebody All right. And last but not least, we have Easton Coles. Easton um did digital photography. So, she had to create some pictures based on a theme. And then, um she uh made second place in digital photography. And we've never had anybody place that high. And she's only a sixth grader. Okay, Easton, stay right there. Come on, everybody. Back one more time. Everybody up. And do we have parents here for this these students? If you're one of the parents, would you please stand up? Because
008without you, we wouldn't have these great students. All right. Love it. Everybody dress so sharp. You can't see out. Make sure. There you go. Get away. Put it down. Smile. You see him taking pictures of We'll see all of you next year. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Guthrie. Okay, next up we have the uh state qualifiers in powerlifting. I don't see um but I don't see Mr. Fleerner. Oh, there's Coach Reeve. There we go. We were back here. Okay. Coach Reeve is going to introduce them all. Well, let as they're as they're all coming in. Go ahead. Y'all just come on in. Just fill in. Yeah, you guys can come right up front. Right here. I like that. There's any family and family members of them. Come on in. There's there's seats back there. Where?
009So, I'm going to introduce Coach Matthew Vaquera. Coach Vaquera is our head powerlifting coach. Coach Robert Pettit is our assistant powerlifting coach. They're here to recognize uh athletes that went to state in powerlifting and both boys and girls. It's become a tradition uh here in El Campo uh for um our kids to go all the way to the state powerlifting meet and so I'm going to let coach Vaquera uh recognize them. So uh we definitely appreciate the recognition that we're getting. I know you heard a lot of clanking and moving whenever we came in. We had a great year. Um we did exceptionally well. Um, I want to start where we came from last year. Uh, we were this close with a lot of things that we had going for us. Um, and this year
010I felt like we just we just went over the top. Um, and you're going to see it about some of the surprises that I talked about. We also brought some of our regional qualifiers. Um, because we have something that's very special at the end that we did as a team and I felt that they the girls want that recognition for what they did as a team. Okay. Uh, so I'm going to start with our boys regional qualifiers. Uh, they're just going to step forward. Uh, some of them are here, some of them are not. Obviously, we got Dallas Anzaldua. Okay, I'm going to tell you about what he did. He squatted uh here is best lifts. Um he squatted 375. He benched 350 lbs which is a regional record. Okay. Uh he deadlifted 370 and
011his best total was,75. Uh Dallas was a regional champion this year. He also got that plaque right there which is best bench on the light platform. He's a state qualifier and he placed 10th at state. Wow. He is in the 123s and I don't know and and we talked about this last time. His bench was 350 lbs. That is super super human. Super human. Very good. Okay. Uh Isaac Mendez, who's not here, but he he was also a regional champion. He squatted 650, 455, 530. Um and he his total was 1635. He's in the 220 lb weight class. He was also a regional champion as well and a state qualifier. He placed seventh at the state of Texas. Our other two regional qualifiers were Edward Gonzalez and William Sorht. Okay, onto our girls. Our girls
012uh so as I call you just come up. Uh our state qualifiers were Ally Espericueta. She won uh the 97 pound weight class uh with a squad of 200 was her best 100 230 with a total of 520. Uh her final placing was 12th at the state of Texas. Yasmin Rodriguez. Yasmin squatted 170 70 bench 75 210 which she asked for over and over and told me she couldn't get it. She was right. Uh she was a state qualifier. She played second at regionals and 13th at state. Bianca Duron. Bianca was in the 123s. Okay. She has plenty of hardware to show for it. She's a 275 squatter, 210 bencher, and 305 deadlift. Uh she was regional champion, best overall lifter on the light platform. Uh she's a state qualifier, and a seventh placing at
013state. Uh Michaela Bard, who's not here, she was a state alternate. Um she was at 235, 130, and 270. Uh she was also in the 123 pound weight class. Uh she worked extremely hard to get to where she was. Uh she placed in at third. They take the top two. They lift, but the third one's an alternate. Isabella Dominguez. Uh here, this best squat was 330, 150, 290. Uh she also had the region, uh the light the best, uh squat on the light platform. She's also state I see I told you we got so many things. Uh she's a state qualifier and she placed 10th at state. Bethany Huggins, 350 was her squat. 265 was the regional record. Okay, I want to highlight that one. Uh, so she got the regional record and then we
014went to state and we actually bumped that up again. We benched 270 in the 140 lb 48lb weight class. Okay. And then 330 on our deadlift. She's a regional champion. She also earned best bench on the light platform state qualifier. And she was our highest placing in state with the third place finish. We had second. We had it, man. And she did such a great job. Such a great job. Uh Sophia, she is uh in at 330, 205, 300 with an 815 lb total. She's a state qualifier and this young lady came back from a long ways. Uh we almost came back from not coming back, right? She had some things last year that we had to work through. She did a great job. Show her perseverance. Uh she actually got seventh place uh at
015state as well. Other regional qualifiers are Katherine Nicks paces the body. Erica Stardinhia, Jennifer Hernandez. Um, and special thanks to our manager, Trinity Hasso. She listens and deals with us and it's a lot. We asked her to do a lot. I told her I'm going to need you and man, she's the best thing that ever happened to us. I do want to highlight that Sophia's holding this right now. We are the 2026 Region 4 champions. We won. We won that bad boy and it was ours last year and we finally got it back this year. And so congratulations to them. Also, something else I want to talk about real quick. So, uh the girls know this, but I'm going to say this. Uh this year we were honored with being and you're only as good
016as the people you have around you, right? So, I want to tell Coach Pettit here. Coach, this is yours for being the winnings coach with us and getting us to where we need to be. And that's for Robert. Perfect. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Here you go. As we get this Dallas Anzel Dua, are any of their parents here, Matthew? Yes, sir. Dallas's parents are right here. Dallas parents here. Yes. Uh, you Yeah. Stand back there. You'll hold it open. Open it up. Yes. Isabelle Dominguez. Are Isabelle's parents here? Yes, they would stand up too, please. Dr. Duron, Aliqueta, there you go. Ally Bethany Huggins, I've had a lot. Sophie Rodriguez and Yasmin Rodriguez. Yasmin Spencer here as well. And there there's Sophia's. Get the pictures, guys. Be nice. Smile. Show everything. Pull
017it all out, man. Let's go. Sorry. All right, Dallas. Don't let Cover your face up and then stay there. I'll jump. That's one more. We're used to it. Yeah. We squat all day. All right. Thanks, coaches. And now we have uh well I'll wait till I can see our band director and and where's your better half Oh Mr. Partida? Uh put her in the car. Yeah, she's over there. She's she's on the way. Bring her in here. Just come. She's right behind the line. Well, John, come on over. Good evening, everybody. Well, we won't be as lengthy as our last one, guys. John doesn't look like the bench press type, but you should see him on a piano. John Jia, everybody, is a state qualifier for the piano portion of Solo Ensemble. He will be
018competing May 22nd along with uh the next young lady you're going to see. John is taught by a wonderful pianist uh from the from the area. This is Miss Vicky Brooks. This is the lady who has put the time and effort to Miss Brooks. You're going to be in this all the way. Uh John made a silver medal last year at the state contest which he qualified for as a freshman and he's going to go again this year as of course a sophomore and we're going to aim for that gold medal which I think is more than doable. So the John Jia everybody Come on up, take a little picture with uh with this man. And John, we'll have your mom come on up, too. I'm stand on this other side. And yes, ma'am. I
019can't I can't say no. All right. This way. Three, two, one. Thank you. All right. And we will have a concert on May 5th and John's going to perform his solo for the crowd and it's going to be outstanding. So tell them what you're playing. State May 22nd later. Yes, sir. Let him tell them what what he's playing. I'm gonna play a piece uh composed by France List. It's called Leave Us Number Three. And Mr. Otradovsky, you're next. Thanks there. Uh everybody this is Sophia Perez. Uh she's doing an ensemble as well but on the vocal side. So uh Sophia chose a song from a very lengthy anthology of music. Uh she chose one in Italian so maybe it even more difficult. She's singing in a different language. Uh the title of the piece is
020help me that. And uh she uh she performed she performed uh uh in earlier this this uh this year. She got one a one. So that puts her out of state. She will again be uh competing again just like last year. What did you make this year last year? Uh I got a gold medal for I got one I got which is for is the best you can do for solo ensemble. So we're going to hope for a repeat for her senior year as well. So Miss Vicky has also been working with her and helping her get ready. So we'll hopefully double up on that. All right. Congratulations. Can we get a parent picture also? Parents were here and they didn't have Mr. and Mrs. Come on in. Miss Vicky, come on back up here.
021I like your dress. Thank you. Absolutely. She There she is. Come on in. Take all the pictures you can. We love this. All right. This way. Thank you. Thank you. Is there significance to the Texas State University Bobcat sweatshirt? She'll be attending in the fall. Very good. Just a little plug. All right. Have a nice one. Thank you. Thank you. Appreciate you. Thought you fact she's going to Texas State. Okay, we'll move on to consent agenda. Now we're on to the business. Yes, we are. A much fun. Board members have been furnished with background material for each of the items listed as part of the consent agenda. Unless a board member requests that an item be withdrawn for individual consideration, the items are acted upon by one vote with se without separate discussion. Is there
022anybody that would like to pull anything out of consent agenda? If not, I'll entertain a motion to approve. I'll make a motion. Motion by Kathy, second by Clayton. There any discussion? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Anybody opposed? Motion passes. All right, we'll move down discussion and action items. Yes, sir. 6B1, consideration and approval of accessible playground equipment purchase not to exceed 325,000. Uh board members, you'll recall we brought this to you last month as uh was originally requested way back in November and so we chose to table this until this meeting. The reason we put $325,000 on there, you've seen the bid inside the packet, I want to say it's 297 and change. This will be a handicap accessible playground solid surface. Um Mr. Burton and Miss Andersen did great work. Mr.
023Burton also had a handout to give you and I said, "Well, I think they've had got all the pictures in their board packet." So, um I know that it uh looks nice. It It's fully covered, Miss Andersen. Correct. Yeah. So, it'll be all sun shaded. It'll be placed at the north side of North Side. and we we put a little bit of extra money in there in case we have to do some prep work or have to purchase fencing to go around it. Um, but the the entire bid package is 297 and change. I forget what it was exactly. So, well, the kids need it and I know they won't spend anything more than what they have to up to 325. Motion. Thank you. Second. Have a motion and a second. Is there any discussion?
024All those in favor, raise your right hand. Anybody opposed? Motion passes. Will that go in this summer? Yes. I'll let Mr. Wells talk about it a little bit because I know he's been working real closely on on this with Miss Andersen and Mr. Burton. You're you're going to take off this you're going to manage the project, right? To save us a little money. Is that what you told me? Yeah. That's what I thought. Perfect. Liar. Liar pants on fire. I think my sign is going to come out. No, I'm going to go over there and tell them exactly where I want it. I mean, that's something. That's a tough job. Tough job, but someone's got to do it. If there's nothing else, we'll move on to 6B2. Consideration and approval of the purchase of a
025new school bus not to exceed 60,000. And this is something I've been concerned about. I we've gone several years now without buying a bus. And and we got behind once and got it got into a little with problems with buses and and so this is something that certainly hope the board will keep up with. And we need to we need to really do this. And we're recommending that we go with the Thomas. We know it's a little bit more expensive than the Bluebird, not as much as the International, but we recommend the Thomas because of their incredible service. If there's a problem with a bus, Thomas comes to us International and Bluebird, we have to take the bus to them. So, we feel like the additional cost for the for the Thomas is well worth
026the few thousands of dollars that it is more expensive than the Bluebird because when we have a problem, they're Johnny on the spot and they are here and repairing it. So, these are these buses now they air conditioned. Yes. And they they now have their seat belts in. We don't have to worry about seat belts, right? It's regular. Regular. It's not flat nose. And it comes with seat belts. Comes with seat belts. Motion to approve a purchase of a new bus. Second. All right. We have a motion by James and a second by Clayton. Any discussion before we vote? All those in favor, raise your right hand. Anybody opposed? Motion passes. Oh, shoot. I just lost. There it is. 6B4. Review and approve the phase one. We got to do 6B3 real quickly. Oh, all
027right. Yeah. on this one 63 to discuss the uh the seat belt. Yes. Just just so the board is aware, we know that we're trying to retrofit. I I think you probably saw the review of everything that we told the newspaper because they've been having to do an article on this particular item. We have several buses that are not able to be retrofitted. We have several buses that um we would potentially be able to retrofit. Our goal right now is to wait to see if the state is going to fund any of this in their grants. The grants aren't out, but we have supplied them with a list of everything we've got. What buses are seat belted, what buses are not, which ones can be retrofitted, which ones cannot. And so the state is well
028aware. And I think there what my and Mr. Wells probably has talked to TEA, but I think what they're doing at this point is finding out how many buses out there need to be retrofitted. they'll find out how much money they've got and then they'll distribute it per bus. So, we're just going to wait because we have until 2029 to do this. And in the meantime, we could be buying new buses that are going to fill out our fleet and the old ones will be moving back. Good. Okay. Questions anybody might have? How many buses do we have in the fleet? 29. I don't know that number. I think it's 29. All of them? No, we use uh 18 on routes and then other ones we use for trips. We have about three or four
029big vans. Mr. Wells used one today. Four vans. And then we have several suburban type vehicles. Suburbans, two suburbans, two Armadas, Expedition. Yes. cars and cars and we send the most economical item when we travel with kids. I think Mark is going to work this summer at developing a route system, especially for summer school. We'll test it out to send a suburban to a particular area, pick up a smaller group of kids rather than running a whole route. We'll just go and then come straight back. That's cool. So, we're trying to be economically um conscious and at the same time recognize wear and tear on buses when you're sending them out and they're only getting 5 miles of the gallon. Sounds good. Okay. Okay. Now, we'll move to 6B4. Review and approve the phase one
030El Campo High School early release make ready and demolition package. Mr. Wells, here's one for you in this story. My apologies on my No, I if everyone will recall the Well, if everyone will recall, I I tried to share that um getting the early release package was going to be a a last minute and so Mr. Wells kicked me out the door at about 12:40 and said, "You better go get into that bid meeting." So, this is a summary. I'm just going to take you through page there's 19 pages, but I'm going take you through them pretty quickly. So, on page two, it has some owner contingencies and summaries. These are for things that we know are going to have to be done and we just don't have the cost at this point. We've estimated.
031These are typically for peers under the ground that we know are going to have to come out. There's uh some things in there for site demolition 27,000. Um on the bottom of page two, on page three, and on page four are several items that are owner done. These are going on in uh building C right now. They're all being done by the district. On page five at the bottom, you'll see that the plumbing work um there's several items on there that are included in the plumbing item on page six. Um and so the plumbing bid is $77,660 uh with Seaman's Plumbing, Luhash Welding, and then um sanitary sewers is done by backup utility. Cannell Air is bidding the duckless split system to keep all of this cool and operating during the entire uh length of
032this project, which will be about two years. The underground electrical system has been bid by Penner Electric at 206,000. Cabling from James Telico at 48,000. Communication with Fireron at 48,000. Fire detection from Fiverrron at 40,700. Earthwork. Now, I'm going to tell everybody earthwork was not in our original proposal that we estimated to be about $1.9 million. So, the earth work, the dewatering, the select fill, the sidewalks, the trench, none of those were in what we thought was going to be this package. We put them in there so we could get all this done to expedite when we get to the next package, which is which is the actual build. um pavement and repairs being done by backup utility. Um sidewalks, you can see PCI is doing those backup utilities doing much of the utilities and
033work. The grand total is 1,817,72. This includes all of the um work on page one which is the contingency and it includes the earthwork which we didn't plan on it being in this package in our original bid we thought was going to be about 1.9 million. So if you add the earthwork in there it was probably going to be this package when in our original process was going to be about 2.3 million. So we like happened with um Hutchins, this original package is a little bit under what we what we felt would be the scope and so um we would recommend that the board accept the early phase early release make ready and demolition package at 1,800 oh I forgot the number already 1707 170 go ahead Mr. 1,8172. There you go. And this is
034a this is a guaranteed maximum price. And that's what that's what is in front of you tonight. So we're we're about $400,000. No, $500,000 lower than expected. Yes. With the dirt. So even with so well no if you had added the expectation of the duck work we would have been at 2.3 million right and we're at 1.8 8 million, right? So half. Yeah. Good. Motion to approve phase one. So move. All right. We got a motion. A second. Any discussion? Vote. All those in favor raise your right hand. Anybody opposed? Motion passes. Yeah. Keep it. Well, board members, we are about ready to go into closed session. Um, if everyone would look at their agenda. Um, when we come out of close session, we will review the contract status for certified teachers and letter letters
035of reasonable assurance for teachers. The recommendations all came from the principles that are here. Um, I think I can answer all your questions in close session. think you'll need them when we come out of close session. There are no action items following the close session. So, it would be my recommendation that at 6:35 we let that group go home except for Griselda and except for Valerie. Everyone else can go have an early dinner. Go home. Don't go back to work. So, we'll go into close session at 6:34. It is now 6:34 and we go into close session. Now, it is now 7:11. It would come out of closed session. Uh so board members, I'll just review the uh 2026-2027 contract status for certified teachers and the letters of reasonable assurance um that we discussed. You're
036all aware of the teachers that we're going to recommend contracts to. Those contracts will go out tomorrow. There's a deadline of May 10th, I believe, for them to be returned, and we will keep track at that point. Um, summer leadership institute is June 10th through June 13th. Um, Miss Garza has made reservations for everybody as far as I can tell. Um, all of you are planning on attending and so we will have all of that designated in advance before we leave. There are several items, 10 of them for celebrations and award ceremonies that are on your agenda for you to note if you want to be at any of those. Um, there is a community and governmental relations things that are going on. So, the Hispanic education project banquet will be next Thursday, April 30th,
0372026. If you'd like to attend, please let me know. I've got a table for the school district. I'm going to go. Okay. Um, could you make note of that, Miss Garza, please? Uh, the athletic banquet is Wednesday, May 6th. The Rotary employee appreciation banquet is Tuesday, May 12th at 6 o'clock. The May board meeting is Wednesday, May 13th. And then we will post the board agenda for graduation, Thursday, May 21st. I can assure you right now besides the agenda item to approve the list of graduates there's a high probability that I will have a number of guaranteed maximum price for the Hutchins project so that we don't have to have another special called board meeting. Oh good if we would just do it at that same you'll all be here. Um we're going to be
038pushing our deadline because the bids are due the Friday before. So, we're going to have to do a lot of work between that Friday and that Wednesday to to come to you with the GMP. But, we would rather do that than have to call a special board meeting, the week of Memorial Day, Memorial Week. That's all I've got. Yep. May 12th. That's the teachers. Yes, sir. May 12th. Okay. Okay. If there's no further business, we're adjourned.