McAllen ISD Regular Board Meeting (September 23, 2025)

0014 3 2 >> Good afternoon everyone and thank you all for joining us. Those of you, we have a large crowd here tonight. It's good to see so many faces. September 23rd. Thank you all for joining us here at the Dr. Ricardo Chapa boardroom for a regular board meeting. Um, items listed on this agenda may be taken in an order other than as shown on this agenda. Unless removed from the consent agenda, items identified within the consent agenda will be acted on at one time. At this meeting, there may be discussion and action by the board on the items and subjects listed as follow. Item number one, call the meeting to order. I have done so at 5:30 p.m. Item number two, moment of silence. Thank you. Adam number three, pledge of allegiance. Please join

002us. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Item number three, public comments. We do have a few signed up for public comments and we are going to watch a short video and then I will call you up. Thank you. Here are the public comment procedures. Number one, individuals who wish to participate during the portion of the meeting designated for public comment shall sign up at mcckllenisd.org at least one hour prior to the start of the scheduled meeting. Number two, an individual's comments to the board shall not exceed two minutes per meeting. Number three, the board shall not tolerate disruption of the meeting by members of the audience. Thank you. ISD.

003All right, up first we have Alyssa Hickden. Miss Hden, you'll have two uninterrupted minutes. >> Hello. I would like to make a quick disclaimer first. If there are children in the room, parents are welcome to exit if they do not feel comfortable with the sensitive topics being discussed, including rape, suicide, and oppression. Good afternoon. My name is Alyssa Hickden and I'd like to thank the board for providing us with the opportunity to share a perspective on the importance of including both students and educators on panels that decide whether certain books should be banned or retained. 13 Reasons Why tells the story of Hannah Baker, a high school student who dies by suicide, and the 13 cassette tapes she leaves behind explaining the reasons for her death. Now, I'd like to read a conversation between Hannah

004and her school counselor, Mr. Porter. Mr. Porter, did anything happen that night that you regret? Hannah, yes. Mr. Porter, did anything happen with this boy that might be considered illegal? Hannah, you mean rape? No, I don't think so. Mr. Porter, why don't you know, Hannah? Because there were circumstances. Mr. Porter, are you thinking of pressing charges? Hannah? No, I'm No. Mr. Porter. Then what are your options? Clay narrating. Tell her, Mr. Porter. Tell her what her options are. Mr. Porter. Well, if you won't press charges and you're not sure if you even can, then you have two options. Hannah, what? What are they, Mr. Porter? One, you can confront him. We can call him in here. Or two, and I'm not trying to be blunt, but you can move on. Hannah, you mean do nothing?

005Clay, I grip the bars and shut my eyes tight. Mr. Porter, it's an option and that's all we're talking about. If you won't press charges and you won't confront him, you need to consider the possibility of moving beyond this. Hannah, you want me to move beyond this? Clay, it's not a question, Mr. Porter. Don't take it as one. She's thinking out loud. >> Thank you. >> Up next, we have Rory Menon. Same thing. Uh, two uninterrupted minutes. Thank you. >> Okay. Hello, my name is Goi Menon and I am a senior at Ivy Lammore. Adding on to the significance of formulating a thorough process of what constitutes book banning, we believe that including students and teachers in the discussion will help to make the process more holistic. And so, educators help to bring essential expertise

006within this topic. So in the Mallen ISD policies, librarians are trained in carefully evaluating books that are age appropriate for us. And so instead of banning the book outright, I believe that educators can help to create a space where such difficult topics can be taught thoughtfully as well as responsibly since it's within they are within the classroom setting. And additionally, students perspectives do matter. Since students are the primary readers within the school setting, involving them in reviews of such books like 13 Reasons Why reflects the real experiences and struggles that students face in today's society and this respects their right to access diverse ideas and promotes transparency which can help to eliminate the stigma that um makes up our current reality. Additionally, collaboration leads to better decisions. And so, introducing Mallalenist's multi-day review meetings regarding

007books can demonstrate how educators can work together to discuss each book's content and to comp recognize its compliancy with the clear guidelines that are established within Macallen ISD. And so this collaborative approach can result in fair and informed decisions rather than complete censorship which is important for tackling complex stories like 13 Reasons Why which handles with suicide and rape. And so while we understand that parents might be concerned with what books that their students are reading within school, I think it's important to recognize that while parents can resist access to certain books for their children at home, broad decisions about school libraries can benefit from both input by both educators and students. And so this inclusive prospect, this inclusive prospect helps to respect the diverse community's perspectives and supports meaningful conversations that can be introduced

008by challenging books such as 13 Reasons Why. Thank you. >> Thank you. And next we have Chenna Kim. Same thing, two uninterrupted minutes. Thank you. Hello, my name is Chenna Kim and I'm a senior at Lamar Academy as well and I'm also here to talk about the banning of books that is happening here in Macallen ISD. Connecting with characters and understanding their perspectives in fiction helps teens develop greater empathy and emotional intelligence. Banning books having to do with self harm and suicide will not help students gather an understanding of the mental health stereotypes that surround their everyday lives. Already less than 20% of US teens report reading a book, magazine, or newspaper daily for pleasure, while more than 80% say they use social media every day, according to research published by the American Psychological Association,

009APA. That only emphasizes the importance of schools in the role of administering literature that promotes awareness of such influential topics like suicide and self harm. I mentioned earlier I am sure most of you know the importance of reading books on growing brains already as you are the heads of an independent school district in charge of 20,000 students. Um so I think that instead of banning books that talk about important topics um teachers and students should read them and learn about communicating one's emotions in a better manner similar to the prompt that my um peer also just stated right now. Thank you very much for your time. >> Thank you. Okay. And now we have Miss Angelica Rodriguez, >> Mr. Rodriguez. Two minutes uninterrupted. Thank you. >> Test test test. Members of the board, my name

010is Angela Rodriguez and I'm a teacher at Memorial High School and I'm here to address the proposed change of our insurance from Blue Cross Blue Shield to United Healthcare because doing so will replicably harm district employees, including myself. Last school year, I struggled with major health issues and after an agonizing year of uncertainty, I was finally diagnosed with stage two ovarian cancer and stage one endometrial cancer. Yes, that's two at the same time. Thankfully, my administrators were genuinely concerned about my well-being and were extremely supportive. However, my health care struggles persisted until my life-changing surgery took place this year on March 17th. Thankfully, our insurance covered a good portion of all the imaging, food, and board medicine, and expenses pertaining to my procedure. And I'm grateful that during this time of extreme stress, I did

011not have to worry about subpar coverage or an issue with medical expenses. Throughout the course of my illness, I was forced to undergo a great deal of tests, appointments, procedures, etc. And thanks to our current insurance provider, I was treated swiftly and respectfully. This may have saved my life. The day before the surgery on March 16th, I distinctly remember the doctors and nurses making a note to call the insurance to make sure it would even get covered. It's my understanding that United Healthcare is embroiled in multiple lawsuits due to denying coverage. And I am certain that if we had united, I may have been denied coverage even on the eve of my surgery, putting my life on the line. In addition to this life-saving surgery, I was offered mental health therapy counseling, which thankfully has

012also been covered by our current insurance provider. And although I am in a much better situation now, I do have regular follow-ups, tests that monitor my condition. And I'm currently receiving PET scan checkups and continue monitoring of my body post-operation. because of the cancer, I have to watch my health even more than ever. And I strongly urge this board to reconsider the suggestion to change healthcare providers because it will affect uh my my it could potentially affect my life. Thank you. >> Thank you so much. Okay. And I believe that is it for public comments. We will now move forward to the public hearing uh to discuss the proposed 2025 tax rate. Dr. Gutas. >> Yes. Thank you, Mr. President and Board of Trustees. Uh this is a public hearing. In this hearing, we will

013be discussing the proposed 2025 tax rate. Uh Miss Lorena Garcia, our deputy superintendent for business and operations, will proceed with a presentation in regards to the tax rate. Go ahead. >> Good evening. Um this hearing is required under state law to review the 2025 2026 tax rate. We are also going to learn about the no new revenue tax rate and the voter approval rate and the proposed rate. uh it the presentation will also provide an uh to show the impact on an average residents and at the end we will have an opportunity for the public to give comments. First of all we'll start off with a graph on our tax rate history. On this graph you see a representation of what our tax rate has been from 2019 2020 to 2025 2026. As you can

014see, there is a steady decrease every year, year to year. Part of it having to do uh with compression. Um the line graph shows the total tax rate as our tax rate is composed of two components. The maintenance and operations tax rate and the interest and syncing rate which is used to pay bond. Uh the M is the blue bar and the interest and syncing is the orange bar. uh our uh the tax rate that we are proposing uh this year for 2526 is is 0.9322 per $100 valuation. It is down a little bit over 6 cents uh 644 from 2425 tax rate which was at 99966. Here we show a comparison of where the district falls amongst our neighboring peers. As you can see, Mallen ISD has one of the lowest tax rates in

015the area. As mentioned before, our tax rate is made out of two components. The maintenance and operations tax rate, which pays for day-to-day operations, such as fuel, utilities, salaries, services, and supplies. And then interesting, which repays uh voter approved debt. In the maintenance and operation, we do have um tier one funding which which is the the this is established by the state. There's a maximum compressed tax rate that we uh cannot exceed without voter approval and that currently is set at 6322. This is the part that has been compressed over time um by the state in efforts to give our constituents a uh property tax relief yeartoyear. Tier 2 is what we call our enrichment funding and these are the 17 pennies after uh the uh 6322. So the golden pennies are at 08 and

016these are not compressed. And then the copper pennies uh are point are nine cents after that and they do require voter approval. The district in uh 2023 did go out for voter approval to maximize the copper pennies. So our total tier 2 tax rate is at 17 cents. So the total maintenance and operation tax rate proposed is at 8022. Our interest in sinking as we said is used to repay voter approved uh bond debt. Um we have done several defeasences and what a defeasence is is when you pay your bond debt ahead of time. We've actually done three in in the past three years. This reduces the interest that the taxpayers have to pay over time. The proposed total INS tax rate is 13 cents. So when you put the two tax rates together, it

017that's how we come up with a total of the 93.22 cents. And now we're going to cover some information on truth in taxation. So these are some some vocabulary words that we have in those truth and taxation notes. First of all is the no new revenue rate. And this tax rate is needed to generate the same revenue as last year on properties tax in both years. So the 2025 2026 no new revenue rate is.8660. And the way that's calculated is by taking the the prior levy and divided it by the current year taxable value, multiplying that by 100. And then um our uh voter approval rate V is for 2526 is 93 22 which is what we are proposing. So we do not need an election in order to proceed with that. just board approval.

018And then the percent increase from the no new revenue rate, which is another calculation that is part of the the motion that the board will will uh announce later today, uh is calculated by taking the proposed tax rate and dividing I'm sorry, subtracting it from the no new revenue rate, which we just learned what that is, and then dividing it by the no new revenue rate and multiplying it by 100. So that is at 7.64. 64. So the percent increase even though we are decreasing six pennies, the truth in taxation laws require that we because it is an increase from the no new revenue rate that the motion read that it is a tax rate increase. So that's how we explain that when you hear that in the motion. And this is the impact on

019the average residents. So uh the property values just to be clear are set by county appraisal district. Macallen ISD does not set those values. What Macallen ISD does is adopt the actual tax rate. So the formula for that is the taxable value divided by 100 and then multiply by a tax rate and that's how you get your tax bill. So in this example we have calculated the 2024 taxes at at 1,231.99 and the average value for the home is 223,619. Because property values went up the following year, the average market value of the residence is now 247,770. Even though the value has gone up, the tax rate has gone down is what we're proposing. We will actually see in this example a savings of $227.36. So, as you can see, the decreasing tax rate is

020able to yield a savings to our taxpayers. Uh, important to note that in our legislative session, uh, we did have a new law that proposes to increase the homestead exemption to 140,000. This would be effective for the 2025 tax year um if the statewide constitutional amendment is approved in November by the Texas voters. Uh senior and disabled exemption is an additional 60,000 where bringing their total exemption to 200,000. in terms of state aid and how that it affects us. Well, the state offsets that reduction in taxpayer revenue. So, we have uh complied with publishing a notice as required by law and then we've also calculated the no new revenue rate as required um the voter approval rate and the proposed tax rate calculated and presented. We did also provide the impact on an average resident

021and uh we are hosting this public hearing prior to to uh to going for a vote and now we will give an opportunity if anybody in the community would like to provide a comment. >> Okay. At this time I know there's several people in the room at this time. If anybody would like to comment on the proposed tax rate, now is your time. All right. Thank you very much. >> Is there any questions from the board? >> Okay. Well, then at this time, we'll close public hearing. Thank you. >> At 5:50 p.m. >> 5:50 p.m. >> Okay. >> Mr. President, may I ask uh I'd like to make a motion to reorganize the agenda. We have some special guests with us today. I would like to move up items 71, 782, and 783. >> Second.

022>> Okay. I have a motion and a second. >> All in favor? >> I >> All right. Motion passes. Seven uh 70. Lizzy's >> 7 A1 and 7 A2. >> 7 A1 2 and three. You got it. >> Okay. 71. Discussion possible action to adopt the proclamation regarding Down syndrome awareness month. >> Dr. Administration would like to raise awareness regarding Down Syndrome individuals by proclaiming the month of October as Down syndrome awareness month. Mr. May will introduce our students and our trustee uh Lucier Regalado, board vice president, will read the proclamation and we are requesting action on this item. >> Where's the proclamation? Do we have a copy? >> She has it right there. >> Mark, we're going to read the proclamation first and then we'll bring the kids in. >> Okay. >> Proclamation. State

023of Texas County of Macallen Independent School District. Whereas approximately one in every 800 children are born with Down syndrome, representing approximately 5,000 births per year in the United States. research and early intervention have resulted in dramatic improvements in the lifespan and potential. And whereas people with Down syndrome possess a wide range of abilities and are active participants in educational, occupational, social, and recreational circles of the community. And whereas Mallen ISD has supported families who have children with disabilities and special health health care needs and desires to increase the support network and support groups of those with Down syndrome across our state. Now therefore, I, Lucia Regalado, vice president, board of trustees of the Macallen Independent School District, do here hereby proclaim the month of October 2025 as Down Syndrome Awareness Month. I call upon all

024residents and public schools to join in celebration of the many achievements of people with disabilities and their continual contribution to our community and schools. In witness whereof, I have here unto set my hand and cause the seal of the Macallen Independent School District to be affixed on this 23rd day of September, 2025. >> If the board and Dr. would like to come to the front, we'll bring in our students. And we're going to start with a Macauan High School 10th grader. This is Viviana Erbina. Next up from Memorial High School, Demetrius Flores from Morris Middle School, Erin Samura. And our supervisor for special education, Carla Barnett Burma. Another student from Morris Middle School, seventh grader, Christopher Legisone, Sergio Sebastian Rodriguez. Miss Bernardet DeLeon, a teacher in the regional day school program for the deaf at

025Escondon. Then teacher Aurelia Benabitas from Esan from Houston Elementary. Student Anna Gonzalez from Houston Elementary. Student Carla Montezuma from Roosevelt Elementary. Teacher Assia Werta at Roosevelt Elementary. our supervisor for special education, Jackie Espinosa. our principal from Morris Middle School, Miss Rebecca Betold, our supervisor for special education, Miss Jessica Garcia, and our director for regional day school program for the deaf, Lisa Lada, supervisor for special education, Georgie Goodlit, and our executive director for special education, Marbel Elliso. Come here. [Music] Where does Christopher And then we got to wait. [Music] baseball on three. >> One, two, three. One, two, three. Ready? Very good. >> Any more moms and dads? pictures. >> And our final student from Memorial High School, Chris Rodriguez. [Music] the camera. Hey Chris [Music] [Applause] That's three. [Music] I don't know. I can't take

026>> You're talking It'll be >> up. >> Well, no. I don't know. He just got bad on the way back. So, I don't know if it was there. So now I'm like I cannot get sick. I know sticky. I know. >> Okay. Um board we are requiring action on this item. >> Move to approve. Second. Have >> a motion by trustee PÑA and a second by trustee regal. All in favor. >> All opposed. >> Motion passes 70. 7 A2 recognition of Texas Governor Greg Abbott's proclamation regarding dyslexia awareness month. Dr. >> October has been designated as dyslexia awareness month. Mallalenzee communi communicates the importance of an early diagnosis and to provide the necessary assistance and guidance to those affected by dyslexia. Mr. May will introduce our students. Our trustee Mr. Dr. Robert Karion will read

027the proclamation and this is is for information purposes only. >> Thank you Dr. Gutierrez. Um in the state of Texas from the office of the governor a common and well-known learning disability dyslexia impacts the ability to interpret spoken or written language affecting nearly one in five Americans. As diagnosis tools and therapies are developed to better understand dyslexia, work remains to lessen the negative impact dyslexia can have on both educational and professional advancement. In Texas, it is not our challenges that define us, but rather how we rise above them. Each year, the month of October is set aside as dyslexia awareness month. Not only to raise awareness of the challenges that dyslexia presents, but also to advocate for research into the advance advancements in dyslexia detention, therapy, and treatments. By supporting these Texans, we can improve

028the rate of diagnosis and give people an earlier chance at success. At this time, I encourage all Texans to educate themselves about dyslexia and to recognize the crucial role that dedicated professionals play in an interdisciplinary effort to improve the lives of people with this disability. Together, we can build a better future for those with dyslexia and ensure that no disability stands between Texans and their dreams. Therefore, I, Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, do hereby proclaim October 2025 to be dyslexia awareness month in Texas and urge all Texans to observe the occasion with appropriate ceremonies and activities. In testimony whereof, I have here unto affixed my signature on the 9th day of September, 2025. Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas. >> Thank you. All right. And then >> All right. And if the uh the board and

029Dr. Gutenis will come to the front. We'll bring in our students. And we'll start with our first student, a fourth grader from Milm Elementary, Lyanna Selenas. Then her teacher, Miss Esther Zabala, and Milm's principal, Miss Edna Ernnandez. Next, we have from Roosevelt Elementary, fifth grader, Jacob Trevinho. Roosevelt teacher, Miss Denise Rodriguez, and our principal from Roosevelt, Miss Rachel Montgomery. And from Thickpin Zapala Elementary, fifth grader, Elibel Chapa, Daniel Aiden Gutieres from Thickpin Zabala, Thickbin Sabala, teacher, Mrs. Morales, and our principal from Thickbin Zabala, Miss Marisella Chapa. and our director for RTI504 and dyslexia, Christian Kintania. >> We'll pose for a picture and any parents who'd like to get a picture are welcome. right here. Okay. Okay, just stay right there, kids. Uh, moms and dads. >> All right. Thank you very much. Can I stand

030back right now? I have one student that just arrived. [Music] Mr. >> From Memorial High School, we have Taylor Young. Hello. Good to see you. [Music] There we go. >> One for mom. Thank you all. >> That was cute. >> 783. >> All right. And now we move on to 783. Report regarding the RTI504 dyslexia program. Dr. Gutier. >> Yes. The RTI504 dyslexia department will report in his 2526 goals and efforts. Miss Christine Kintania, our director uh will have more information on this uh and this is for information purposes only. Miss Kintania. >> Yes sir. Good evening. Um I'm going to go ahead and start with our report for response to intervention section 504 and dyslexia. So here in Macallen ISD we begin with the identification placement and accommodations and we continue monitoring our students

031in RTI and 504 as well as in dyslexia. What I have for you here is our response to intervention. It is a multi-ter approach to the early identification under the multi-tiered system of supports which is MTSS and we do support our students academically and with behavioral needs. So RTI um addresses our students who are struggling in the general education classroom with proven or researchbased interventions. Currently we are serving 969 students under the RTI umbrella. Under section 504, it is the rehabilitation act of 1973 that protects the rights of individuals with disabilities. So we are regulated to provide a free and appropriate education to each qualified individual within our jurisdiction, excuse me, regardless of the nature or severity of the disability. And uh here in McGallan ISD, we do have individualized accommodation plans. Those are required

032and we do serve about 1,4774 students in our school district. Now for dyslexia, it is defined as the irrelated disorder. It is a dyslexia means disorder of that is a constitutional origin manifested by a difficulty in learning to read, write or spell despite of all the instructional uh resources and and instruction that happens. Um so this disability we are uh mandated to screen and we do screen for the characteristics of dyslexia in the primary grades. We are required by law to screen our first graders by the middle of the year, which is by January 31st of every year. And our K kindergarteners are screened by the end of the school year. And um as of August 2025th, uh 2025, I'm sorry, this school year, we are servicing our students in our dyslexia lab called the

033specialized reading instruction. it is uh categorized and being served under special education as per the house bill 20 uh 3829 that was uh mandated three years ago. So we accomplished that migration last uh May. Uh we are currently serving our dyslexia students with specialized reading instruction. We have about 1,34 students receiving these services with our uh dyslexia teachers. They are called the providers of dyslexia instruction. These are the three adapted blended programs that we use here in Macallen ISD. For the primary grades or elementary it is Lexia core 5 and for the secondary it's also it is Lexia but it's power up. So we are working um again it's adaptive and it's a blended learning program that accelerates the development of our students in literacy skills and uh we are proud to say that we

034do have in our elementaryaries they are successfully completing the elementary program and moving forward with power up in fifth grade for example um our teachers are fully trained in lexia letters and that is a language essential for teachers of reading and spelling. So this is a science of teaching reading. Therefore, we have successfully trained all our dyslexia teachers because as you can see, 95% of students can learn to read based on research when instruction is based on the science of reading. And again, I just to update you on our outstanding news in our department. We do have the 13 dyslexia teachers who are certified academic language therapists, the Kelts, and we also have one pending the assessment. and we started our second cohort of 12 dyslexic teachers um who are going to become CE uh

035trained and certified. It is a two-year process that they receive training. It is a voluntary commitment and we are able to support them through and with a with a five-year commitment to Macallen ISD. and we continue to be dedicated and uh we support our students, we support our school leadership as well as our teachers and we look forward to continuing to grow everyone in our department. This concludes my presentation. >> Thank you so much, >> Minia. I just want to thank you for everything that you do. As somebody who has dyslexic tendencies and took years and years of phonics as a kid and still can't spellch checkck my own u writings, thank you for everything you do because it's so important. >> Thank you. You're welcome. >> Thank you. Okay, we will go back to

036our consent agenda and unless one of our board members would like to pull one out. >> Move to approve >> items 6 A through 6G. >> Yes, 6 A through 6G. >> Okay, I have a second and a second by Trusty Karion. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes 70. Okay. 7 A4 report regarding professional de developmental opportunities. Dr. Hutz >> administration will report on the professional development opportunities. Mr. Richard Roberts, our reading language arts coordinator will have more information on this item and this item is for information purposes only. Mr. Roberts, >> thank you all. >> Good evening. >> Hope you're well. So, I just want to give some information on um a new professional learning partnership with the National Math and Science Initiative that we started last year and we're continuing this

037year. Um so, last year we were able to um bring in the National Math and Science Initiative and they um provided us with a three-day professional learning session for um that served teachers in grades 3 to 10 in reading, language arts, math, and science. um that took place in July. Excuse me. It was um um overall pretty successful. You can see some data there that just says what some of the teachers takeaways were as far as how they felt it enhanced their content knowledge and their pedagogical experiences in the classroom practices. These are some um pictures of some of the action. Excuse me. I'm uh nervous for some reason. Um these are some pictures of some of that stuff in action. Um teachers, happy smiling faces and um and uh some hard work over the

038summer in July. So this year we were able to continue our partnership with the National Math and Science in uh initiative. They reached out to us and um talked about sort of a sponsorship that's made available through them and General Motors. um after our working with them um over this last summer, they reached out and said, you know, well, General Motors essentially reached out to Nimsy and said, "Hey, we have some money that we'd like to use as a sponsorship for a district. We're thinking Austin or Dallas or somewhere around there." Nimsy said, "Hey, how about this place, Macallen? They're pretty cool." And we worked with them and it really worked out this past summer. And so Nimsy reached out to us and said that General Motors is pledging $350,000 to continue that partnership with

039us for professional learning um in the summer, but also extend a little bit throughout the school year. And I'll talk about what that looks like in just a second. Um with a couple of just um things to consider, right? So, Mallen ISD has to invest 25,000 of our own dollars into the professional learning just to kind of show our intent behind um continuing with this process and continuing with this partnership. Uh and there are a couple other things we need to do, a letter of intent from the superintendent or superintendent designate. Um an agreement to promote the partnership with Nimsy and General Motors. So we um just you know take taking of pictures and things and uh to to show our partnership and that sponsorship and then a a general plan of what that might

040look like including instructional goals and out uh outcomes. So this is that general plan. So if you look from uh sort of the the three rows, right? Starting at the top there, that top that top row of third through 10th teachers, right? That um shows the timeline starting this past summer, right? So in July, we saw we had Nimsy come in for a summer institute for three days with u with those particular teachers throughout the fall and spring of this particular school year. We're continuing to um kind of support the learning that happened during that um during that summer institute uh through our own content supports and the various contents that we all serve. Right? Like Dr. Mutetta said, I'm the I'm the reading language arts coordinator for the district, but there's a math coordinator,

041science coordinator, and so there we're all sort of supporting that learning as we go. And then we'll have part two of that summer institute for teachers in grades 3 to 12 this time um uh coming this summer, right? And then on top of that, because of the that are being that being being sponsored, right? Because of the professional learning that's being sponsored. We're also looking at um training AP teachers on some specific things that are relevant to them. So, we're going to work with advanced academics and looking at exam review training and looking at creating custom sessions uh for specific AP classes that are designated by that department. And then that will continue to be supported through curriculum writing in the summer. And then we're also looking at um Nimsy even coming in and uh

042training some of our leadership uh as far as you know what to look for when we're looking for really impactful learning in STEM classrooms. What to look for and how to um to coach up teachers, right? An acid ass ac assetbased approach to uh to um observing classrooms. So that's all stuff kind of coming soon as part of this process um that will happen throughout the school year. And then uh why are we doing this? just generally because one um you know the bringing in Nimsy last year was uh really successful on a couple of levels, right? One like that data from the first slide showed uh teachers found it really useful and teachers felt that it improved their content knowledge and their approaches to instruction in the classroom. And on top of that um

043they gave us some really great feedback and this is some of the stuff from the surveys that Nimsy provided us with at during our debrief session. and teachers said things like they really enjoyed the lessons that they uh they got a chance to take a part of. They loved all the calibration and working with co-workers and even saying something like this is one of the best trainings I've ever been to. So um we have a lot of really positive feedback from teachers. We're really um excited to continue this partnership with Nimsy and continue to support um all the educators in >> Thank you, Mr. Roberts. Thank you very much. >> Okay. And now we move on to 7B, human resource item. 7B 1, discussion and possible action on request for proposal number 2026 1012, branding

044rights for Macist's game day athletic uniforms. Dr. Utier, >> administration solicited proposals for branding rights for game day athletic uniforms. Mr. McClenny, our director of athletics, is available to answer any questions. We are recommending action on this item and it's a threepart action item. Okay. Mr. President, I move that the board approve request for proposal number 2024-1021 apparel awards incentives printing and related products and services round 16 and approve the companies on the attached list as qualified vendors for a co-termous term through June 30th, 2027. >> All right, I have a motion by trusted and second by trustee Pena. >> All in favor? I >> opposed. Motion passes 70. >> Okay. And this is a three-part motion. >> Yeah. >> Mr. Chair, I move to approve that the administration begin contract negotiations with the highest

045ranked firm if the district is unable to negotiate a satisfactory contract with the selected firm. The district shall formally and in writing end negotiations with that firm and proceeds to the next firm in the order of the selection ranking until a contract is reached and or all submitts are rejected. >> Okay. I have a motion by trustee and a second by trusty pñena. All in favor? >> I. >> All opposed. Motion passes 70. >> And >> Mr. Chair, I motion to authorize the superintendent to execute a contract and related documents once contract negotiations have successfully achieved for a period of three terms, three years. >> I have a motion second >> and a second by trustee Pena. >> All in favor? >> All opposed? Motion passes 70. Thank you guys. 7B2 discussion of Texas Association

046of School Board Localized Policy Manual Update 125. This is a second reading. >> Uh Dr. >> presented from TASBY and reviewed by our staff. This update represents legal and local reference policies recently adopted by the state. Administration is presenting this item as a final reading. Dr. Canales, our chief human resources officer will have any information if board members have questions and we are recommending action on this item. >> Okay. Board >> move to approve. >> I have a motion by trusty Pena. I'll second >> and a second by trustee Hadad. All in favor? >> All opposed. Motion passes 70. 7 C. Business and operation items report regarding 7C1. report regarding the financial investment report for the quarter of April through June 2025. Dr. >> The district provides quarterly investment reports to the board. Miss Lorena

047Garcia, Deputy Superintendent for Business and Operations, will present the financials and investment reports for the quarter of April through June 2025. This is for information purposes only, Miss Garcia. >> Yes. Yes. And I'm pulling up the report. We do have our financial report where it compares uh our approved budget for the prior year and the year-to- date actuals and then also it it it takes that into consideration in comparison to our current year approved budget and year-to- date actual and then it provides a difference. Um at the bottom as you can see um the approved budget was uh 259,478 827 whereas the year-to- date actually was 263525236 uh in expenditures were uh budgeted at 282 321 however only 257,850 uh were in the expenditures. As far as our preliminary uh fund balance uh uh our

048preliminary fund balance and we are projecting it at 151,516479 which is a gain of 5,674836 to the total fund balance. This does not include an estimate uh 11 million to the uh unassigned uh fund balance. However, these numbers will become final in November when we get the final report from our external auditors. But that's that's what we're projecting right now. As far as the quarterly investment report, um we did we did have some uh significant interest earnings. Let's see. Thank you. I was going to go to that page on my notes. U from April to June 2025, uh the amount was 1.65 million and uh which we earned interest in the last quarter. And that concludes my report. Do you have any questions? >> Okay. Board, this was for information purposes. >> Okay. Thank you.

049Thank you. >> And 7C2 report regarding the annual investment report for the period of July 1st, 2024 through June 30th, 2025. Dr. >> Yes. The district provide pro provides quarterly investment reports to the board. Uh tonight we have uh Nick Vicari and Philip Jones of Meter Public Funds who will present the annual investment report for the period of July 1st, 2024 through June 30th of 2025. Uh this item is for information purposes only and I think we have them on screen Mr. Philip Jones, can you hear us? >> Yes. Can you hear me? Okay, over there. >> Yes, sir. >> Go, go ahead. >> Awesome. Well, good evening and firstly, just want to start off by thanking you'all for giving me the opportunity to uh present this evening. Just as a formal introduction, uh my

050name is Philip Jones with me public funds and I'm part of the advisory services team here in Texas. You know, I act as a direct point of contact uh for the district, working closely with the McCallen ISD uh finance team, but our primary focus uh is to position the district's investment program uh to maximize revenue, but also maintaining, you know, safety, stability, and liquidity inside the portfolio. And the finance team, they did a great job this year. And we'll kind of speak to uh the performance later on in the presentation. Uh but today, I'll just do a brief presentation on the annual investment report. We'll go over uh just briefly the current economic and market conditions and then we'll follow with just a review of the portfolio's performance and positioning of the current account. And

051I'll share my screen here >> and just let me know whenever y'all can see it. >> Yes, we can see it's on screen. >> Okay, perfect. So, we'll just with observations and expectations uh here in this box. So, uh the pile stated that the labor market is still solid but slowing somewhat. So the labor market has actually weakened since June. Um and that's forced the Feds to kind of change their policy and enter a more easing uh economic uh conditions. Uh trade tariffs and tensions continue to weigh on business investment sentiment. Tariffs have been a huge topic of conversation uh you know surrounding this entire year and with all that uncertainty is really forcing businesses to limit their investments which and thus causing a weaker labor market. Uh the Fed held rates steady at the

052June FOMC meeting projecting two cuts later in 2025. So we're already experiencing that. So in the most recent September month, uh the Fed's cut the uh Fed funds rate by 25 basis points. And this is just kind of leading to an expectation of future rate cuts, you know, leading on to the latter half of the year. Uh GDP is expected to rebound in Q2 uh from the tariff induced decline in the first quarter. So it actually did rebound in in the second quarter, got up to 3.3%. But with tariffs still being, you know, a huge factor in in the market, they're expecting it to be just a temporary uh temporary bump in GDP and expecting uh more negative results to come in the future. Uh the Fed's favorite inflation metric, CORP PCE, ticks high in

053May. So CROP PCE is currently at 2.8% which is above the Fed's uh recommended 2%. Um, and that's just suggesting that there's going to be some uh potential easing in in the future and interest rates across the yield curve were lower were lower in the month of June. Um, and that's just like I said, so that's just pointing towards that rates are going to come down in the future and it's just good time to start positioning the portfolio, you know, as such. But to kind of summarize everything, the Federal Reserve initiated that first initial cut lowering the Fed funds rate by 25 basis points. to address that weakened uh labor market despite having that high core PC of 2.8%. So this shift has really uh led to a rally across different sectors which is causing

054investors to strategically kind of lock in yields and the expectation of further easing and curve uh stability and we'll go down to the second slide here. So on the third slide here, so this is uh on this below here, the Fed funds futures market continuing prices where the market participants expect the Fed funds rate to be heading. Um and at the end of June, the futures market was showing a 2 and a half 25 basis point Fed cuts by the end of 2025 approximately ending the year around 3.7% which is going to be down from the current 4.2 4.3%. And the Federal Reserve expects inflation to move higher later this year. So you know all this is really saying um is that rates are going to come down and the expectation at the end of

055the year is going to be around 3.7%. This is all due to the weakening labor market. So inflation is ticking higher and typically you know the Fed wants to keep inflation in in bay but the like I said since June the labor market has significantly declined. So the feds have kind of switched their their stance and wanted to accommodate that weaker weaker labor market. And looking at this slide here, so this is just showing you the Treasury yield curve change from a month over month basis. So as the Fed funds uh rate starts to decline towards the last half of the year, uh these two lines are going to start to steepen a little bit. So as they decline, you know, the the longer interest rates are going to start to increase and the shorter

056duration is going to start start to decrease. and it's already started to do that. So right now instead of 17 basis points the three years turn 32 basis points. So that gap is already starting uh to show the present day. And that's it on the uh economic updates and we'll go to the portfolio. So this is a snapshot of the Melaniz portfolio as of June 30th. And this is just the portfolio position as far as the par value and principal cost the book value. But what I really want to go over on this slide is going to be the maturity distribution, the yield to maturity, and the average maturity in years. So looking down here to the maturity distribution, uh we can see that over 60% of the portfolio is currently in that one day

057uh bucket. So as the Feds continue to lower rates and ease the economy towards the last half of the year, this buck is going to be drastically affected by those interest rates declining. So that interest rate that we came to know and loved in the pools and in the banks that were given us four and 5% is going to start to decline to the latter half of the year. So, that's going to be on us, you know, to work with the finance team to kind of fill these buckets out here to build some duration in the portfolio to lock in that uh that interest that we we've come to love. Uh but yield to maturity for the year was 4.25%. So, the finance team, they did a great job at locking in, you know, 4.25

058for the year. Um that's incredible. So, and then lastly on this slide, the average years to maturity. So, we see that as 4. So really we want to see this right on like the one year more. Uh but we have to work with the finance team, understand our cash flows, uh to really kind of build out the duration portfolio to lock in some interest for the future to create that budgetary certainty for the school district uh moving forward. And this is uh you know look at the annual portfolio summary from a year-over-year basis. So comparing you know 25 to 24 uh the inbook value versus the inbook value in 25 that could just be from debt service payments. But what I really want to highlight on this uh slide is going to be the the

059weighted average yield to maturity. So in 24 it was 4.79% and the average yield in 25 was 4.25%. And the feds they started to do their rate cuts in the latter half of 2024 which is why you've seen a decrease in this number here and which is why more important that we can build this number here the point forward in the average weighted maturity years to kind of extend that duration in the portfolio lock in that interest for the future. But the main thing I want to highlight for this uh this portfolio or this slide is the finance team was able to accumulate uh roughly $7 million in interest revenue for the school district. So, you know, hats off to the finance team for really being proactive and uh you know, doing a great job

060for the school district. And then lastly, uh this is just a portfolio overview. So this just breaks down a list of the securities that's currently held in the portfolio. Uh so you know, from the bank deposits to the individual securities that the school district holds. And as you can see, the majority of that's currently in pools and that's going to be in that one day bucket we saw earlier. So it's just going to be us, like I said, have conversation with the finance team to try to uh diversify up a little bit to, you know, fill those other buckets and utilizing these other securities. down here. But, you know, that's all I have for youall today and I'll I'll pass back over to the to the finest team. >> Thank you very much, Mr. Jones.

061>> Or do you have any questions, >> comments? >> So, we earn about $7 million. >> Yes, sir. 7 million for the year. >> For the year >> from interest >> in interest earnings. Yes. And that that does uh help our budget because I I remember the times when we'd only earned it would it was less than a million per year, maybe 600,000 a year. So this this is great. >> Thank you. Kudos. >> Thank you to our team, our finance team and our investment committee. >> All right. >> And we're going to have our our audit report in in about two months in November. We're also looking at a nice increase to our fund balance also to uh to add some more to the fund balance that we currently have. So, we've been monitoring

062our finances very well, keeping track of our taxpayers money and and it's going to be a good thing to continue to add to the fund balance and it looks positive. So, we'll we'll have that final reporting sometime in November. >> Thank you guys. >> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Johnson. >> Thank you. We will move forward to 7C3 report regarding enrollment for the 202526 school year. Dr. Peters, >> this is a report from our uh strategic partnership and student outreach department. This report will include an update on enrollment, recruitment and recapture efforts. Miss Elizabeth Kavasos, our director for strategic partnerships and student outreach, will present details of this report. This item is for information purposes only. So, let me turn it over to Miss Kavasos. Go ahead. >> Good evening. On. Yes. >> Go ahead.

063>> Good evening, um, board of trustees. I'm so glad to be here. Dr. Thank you for this opportunity. Um, get started. So, as you know, I'm going to talk about enrollment. So, we're going to look at some comparisons between this year and last year. That blue line is where we are this year, beginning with day one of school and ending with September 11th, which is when this um this report was submitted. So the big highlights, the big takeaways there are between this year and last year, which is that purple line just above, we were in a deficit of 1312 students. Um, as far as first day enrollment one day to the next, day one, right? Since then, since the first day of school, our enrollment has grown a total of 14 and four, 144 students,

064pardon me. Um, which is quite different than the rate of change for last year. So from day one to where we were at this point last year or where we were September 11th, um we had grown 556 students. So that rate of increase is significantly higher. That slope is um steeper and that number is continuing to grow. So we're really excited um for that for sure. Want to look a little bit closer at these numbers. And I know there's a lot of numbers on the screen and I don't expect you to zero in on all of them, but I do want to call out first what this represents and two some big takeaways from this slide. This is class size comparison. So all this is is comparing how many prek students, for example, we had

065enrolled last year and how many prek students we have enrolled this year. Same with every other grade level all the way up to 12th grade. So big highlights here is that our prek enrollment in uh from last year to this year dropped 183 students. Now big um factor contributing there is we did close five a total of five head start classrooms which is a little over a 100red students. Our um uh let's see our excuse me our kindergarten grew which is a great thing. Our sixth grade grew, our 11th grade grew, and our 12th grade grew. Now, that's important. It's good information, but again, this is just comparing class size from one year to the next. Um, as far as campuses, we had growth at Milm, Rayburn, Garza, Gonzalez, Hendricks, Morris, DeLeon, and Fawsome. So,

066growth in places, growth in grade levels. Um, but again, that prek number I want you to keep an eye on. We're going to touch on that in just a second. This next slide looks like I duplicated it, like I put it on there twice on accident. This actually represents cohort change. So now I'm looking at of the prek students that were enrolled last year, how many of those continued with us to kindergarten, right? So uh, of course we're interested in numbers, but I want to know that the Lisa Kavasos that was sitting in kindergarten last year is now Lisa Kvassos in first grade this year. It's very important to us. And when we look at that, we can see our prek to kindergarten uh number, again this is just math formulas in an Excel sheet

067sheet, uh dropped 163 students. Every grade level between kinder and fifth grade grew. So our cohorts grew. Um sixth grade dropped just a little bit. Six six students. Our seventh grade, so sixth graders becoming seventh graders grew. Eighth grade dropped a couple of students. are in ninth grade. So eighth graders becoming nth graders grew by 145 and then we had drops in 10th, 11th and 12th grade. Okay. So I want to call out that prek number because we talked a little bit about Head Start, but another important thing to consider because Head Start makes up such a big uh component of our preK number. Some of those Head Start students were never going to metriculate into kindergarten because they were Head Start three-year-olds. So, they were in preK3, now they're in preK4. That number was

068never going to transfer over. We'll see them bump up over next year when they become 5 years old. So, that's important to to note as well. I'm currently working on decoding a little bit of the um 10th, 11th, and 12th grade numbers because a lot of that are not missing kids. It's grade levels, right? So, I didn't quite have enough credits to go from 9th grade to 10th grade. I'm still considered a nth grader. So on and so forth. We're looking at that a little bit more closely. Oops, there we go. This is um just a closer look at enrollment. And there's a lot of numbers on this slide and I want to make sure that um I go a little bit slower here and really really articulate what I want um to get across

069here. As of June of 2025, so last day of school, we ended the school year with 19,556 students. That's who we sent off last day of school, celebration, the whole thing. We knew right off the bat that we were going to lose, 1499 students because they graduated. We want to lose those kids. They're 12th graders. We send them off to the next chapter. So, when you take away those graduating seniors, we have 18,057 students that we would expect to return starting kindergarten all the way through 12th grade. Of course, we welcome in new prekers as well, but we're not counting those in the 1900 I'm sorry, 19,556 students. So, our our um last day of school came and went and over the summer 1,220 students decided not to come back to Macallen for lots of

070reasons. That's the work of student outreach in the fall is reaching out to those families. Where did they go and can we get them back? So our baseline starting this school year with what we had from last year was 16,837 students. So that being said, our current enrollment is 19,445, which means that we have 2,68 new toll students currently enrolled in the district. So while we are down 400 plus students from our enrollment from last year, we have managed to recruit and in some cases organically attract 2,608 new students. Um which is a deficit of 111 students compared to the last day of school. So very very important information. As we look at numbers, of course, they're important, but when you really look at students, right, not just the numbers, but who was here, who

071came back, what was the number we had to work with, and the work that's been done to get us up to um our current enrollment, it is significant. Had we started the year at 16,800 students and added just our prek class, just our pre-K class, about 1100 students, we would have been facing an 8.2% decline in enrollment. Okay. So, with our uh additional work as a district, through student outreach, through marketing and communications, through our amazing community that spreads the good word about Mckllen ISD, um we're down 0.57% from the last day of school. If you want to know where those 2,608 new students landed in the district, that little chart tells you what grade level. So, you can see our prek students is a big um a big component of that, our new to

072the district students. And second to that is our ninth graders and our kindergarteners. Right? So new entry points for prek and kinder. And then nth grade is always a bump as a lot of our private school programs, charter school programs, um, homeschool programs, people want the traditional high school experience. So then we see that bump in nth grade. This is a look at just where we've been over the last nine school years. And so just kind of a little bit of context, right? Never a number without a story. Never a story without a number. Um 1718 we had two new charter schools open that serves the Macallen ISD area. So in that year we were okay. We were just under a half a percentage point decrease. But that next year we saw that 3.7 uh%

073drop as those students chose um to attend those um those schools. 18/19 we had one new charter school open. This was also the launch of the student outreach team. Uh we were down 3.7% from prior years. Starting 1920, we were down 2%. So we were able to close that gap just a little bit and then we never came back from spring break that year. That was the year that COVID hit. 2021 was our remote learning year and we lost a lot of kids. A lot of students became disconnected not only from Macallen ISD but from school in general. When we came back in 2021, that was our choice year. You could come back, you could stay home. Um we uh continued to lose kids when we were back full force in 22 23 everyone back

074in their chairs the difference in enrollment was 11 students right so we managed to stabilize when we came back um and then every year since then 23 24 we were down 1 and a half% 24 25 1% right now we're at 2.4% 4%, but we're not quite comparing apples to apples because these are snapshot numbers. So, we're still lacking about a month and a half to seven weeks worth of recruitment from the date that these numbers were pulled to when we'll be able to compare those snapshot to snapshot. Just a little look at what we're focused on. And I'm always a little bit hesitant to put a lot of detail on this slide for obvious reasons, but we are always focused on preK recruitment, boosting numbers at the earliest entry point. When families bring their

075students to prek, they are meeting their first mommy and daddy friends, their their children are making their first best friends. Um, that's where the roots are really planted and and grow and bloom, and that's where we see our our persistence. So, we really focus not only for those kind of mushy reasons, but also PreK is a program and it's optional for parents. Parents know this and maybe a child wasn't ready in August, but they're ready in September, they're ready in October, they're ready in November. And we can enroll those students anytime. Um, we're also continuing our lever work, our lever outreach and recapture those, 1220 students. That's the way to grow the district is to continue doing all the things that we're doing, but lose less students as we know that we're um attracting students

076as well to the tune of those 267 new to the district. But if we could lose less of the 1220 that we lost over the summer, now we're growing the district. So that um outreach to recapture students who have left uh really focusing in our community that is highly mobile, that is moving, that is in temporary housing. We're hearing that more and more um and that tried it and didn't like it population. So I thought the grass would be greener, not quite what I expected. Welcoming those families back with open arms. We're also taking a really um close look at what we do as a team in terms of community visibility, boots on the ground, really um refreshing how we are out in the community working to um engage and build trust amongst our families.

077Just a little um look at attendance and I have some updated numbers here. Again, this this report was um a little over a week ago, but our overall district attendance uh which is just as important as enrollment, right? They can't be enrolled and not come to school. That doesn't do us any good. But 95.64. So a little higher than what's reported there is our current district ADA with high school coming in at 94.25. A little higher than that as well. And middle school at 95 um 87 and elementary staying just about stable where it's at right there. Um our new entries are a little higher as well, 1589. Um and our district enrollment as I mentioned earlier is 1944. Our out of district enrollment continues to be um about 14% of our population comes from

078outside of Macallen ISD boundaries. Um attendance is really important. It is not something that happens to us. It's something that we have influence and control over to some extent. And really changing that mindset, increasing data visibility and promoting that adult culture is is really what our focus is around attendance and collaboration with our partners in the student operations team as well as our marketing and communications team as well. To that end, we also have the optional flexible school day program which is kicking off in a big way this week as students hit their eligibility. It felt like all at once a wave. Um that 698 number has grown to about a thousand students who are eligible for OFSTP and are going on to that program um this week. So we're excited for that. Um if

079there are parents out in the community that are hearing this and they hear about optional flexible school day, maybe their campus reaches out to them. The consent form is in the Skyward parent portal. It's an awesome opportunity to maximize attendance and a really good thing for your child. So, if you have questions, please reach out to student outreach. And then finally, um also growing enrollment by way of the Mallen ISD stepup program, our um brand new 18 to 26 year old program, giving students an opportunity to complete their diploma. Um really excited for that. Again, if you're watching, if you know someone who could take advantage of this, please reach out. You can scan the code on the screen as well and we're happy to get you connected with all the information and resources. That

080is it. Any questions? >> Thank you. I will open it up to the board for questions. >> What is I guess the largest insight you have in ter in terms of our declining enrollment um over the years? >> Yeah. Movement. So our biggest the biggest reason the number one factor if you look at every kid who's left it's movement. So in some cases they're moving out of the um area right completely. So they're moving to a place where they could not possibly attend Mallen ISD. Um here lately we're seeing more and more of our students who have chosen to come to Macallen ISD having to return to their home communities um for more financial reasons. Right? So um transportation is is not provided for our transfer students. Um gasoline is expensive. Parents um who maybe

081used to be a one working parent family are now a two working parent family. And that time and effort to get a child um into a new community, into a different community to go to school um is a luxury in a lot of ways. If you're able to take your child kind of on the LA on the road, less taken, so to speak, you're already doing better than than a lot of families. And so those circumstances are changing. So we're seeing families saying, "I wish I could still be with you guys, but I really need the bus to pick up my child. We live off of Monte Cristo in Edinburg, that kind of thing." And it becomes very difficult. So of course, we have those conversations. We support every which way we can and we

082let them know that there's always a home for them at Mallen ISD. >> One of the most current u things that are going on and because I've talked to other districts uh is the what's going on with immigration is really hit us really hard. All the border town um have been hit very hard. I've talked to other districts who are a lot smaller than us that have lost about the same number that we've lost >> of students. And so um it could be immigration right now recently because of all the recent events with immigration has made a big impact especially uh school districts that are right next to the border have seen a significant decline in comparison to last year. >> We've seen some too but uh they have seen even a greater number of

083decline. >> Thank you Dr. Gutas. Thank you for all of the data and information here Miss Kavasos. Um I'm keying in on two particular groups of students and families. >> First being withdrawal since day two. >> We've got 107 of them. Um to what extent are we are you all and your team in the practice of conducting sort of leave interviews or attempting to gather that information? >> Absolutely. So um me personally, I receive an email every single time a student withdraws from the district and we put our team on it right away. Right. So we learn as much as we can about the situation. So, what does the family tell us at the point of exit? But then also, what is the true story, right? So, oh, it's easy to say we're moving away

084or what have you and you talk to the family and there's there's another story or there's a different story or there's more to the story. And so, um that rebuilding of trust if it's been broken for some reason is um is a time it's a time-taking task, right? um our team um solves a lot of problems, apologizes for a lot of things and tries to um mend a lot of of bridges, right? Um sometimes that happens really quickly and we can get a family right back and sometimes that takes a little bit of time and it may even be a next year um or next semester kind of situation, but uh when a family leaves, I'm going to say this and it's going to sound like I'm being hyperbolic, but I promise you it hurts

085us because we know what it takes to get a family. And if a family is leaving because they have to, then we hope that it hurts us both. Um, but when a family leaves because they feel like they have to, that's when we do everything we can to make sure we get them back. >> Yeah, thank you for that. And, uh, I wouldn't have expected anything different, I guess. Um, you know, I know we have such a group of caring educators, um, across our district and we're also in the business of people and, um, relationships can get messy sometimes and that's just the way of life, right? Um the other group that I'm I'm really interested on are the um cohort departures with a couple of these key points that you noted. >> Um and

086it just I I wonder the extent to which we might rally around a target of less than 2% enrollment decline on a year-over-year, you know, um or something of that nature. we've been very close and I suspect over the course of the next six to seven weeks before um snapshot we'll we'll get there given where we are right now. But to me that just feels like a real um opportunity um especially given the recent A rating and accountability for A throughF the consistent A ratings and financial um opportunity and just all of the great things happening in the district. So um that that's something that I'm continuing to think about and thank you for all of your hard work on this and the team. >> Thank you. Absolutely. Okay, thank you very much. >> Thank

087you. Thank you, Mr. Klesus. >> We will move forward to 7C4, report regarding bond planning and next steps. Dr. >> Yes. Uh, tonight we will present the report regarding our bond planning and the next steps in the process. This report will provide the board with an overview of current planning efforts, key considerations moving forward, and recommendations to ensure alignment with district priorities and community needs. Miss Lorena Garcia, our deputy superintendent for business and operations, as well as Mr. Ruben Trevinho, our executive director for facilities, will present more details on our planning process. And this item is for information purposes only. So, I'm going to turn it over to Miss Garcia first and then after that, Mr. Trevinho. Go ahead, Miss Garcia. >> Uh, yes, thank you. Uh, we're very proud of our 31 campuses. Uh

088we also within our district building inventory we have nine administrative support buildings. Uh these are housed over approximately 657 acres. We have over 3 million square feet of building space. And of course this encompasses 18 elementary schools. We have our six middle schools and three comprehensive high schools. uh which we also include in our offerings an early college high school uh an alternative campus our international baloric campus and our recent addition UTRGB collegiate campus. The construction of the buildings range anywhere from 1939 to 2024. The average age is 51 years and the median age is 42. So you can see there are some that are getting up there in in age. The district has been working uh for the last two years on the tax strategy. First it began with the voter approval of tax

089rate election. Um what the district did back in August. They had a series of workshops here in in the boardroom that were presenting to the board the option to go out for a voter approval tax rate election. And what that was is to increase the maintenance and operation tax, the one that we use for general operating expenses that want to increase it by four pennies. And the this was going to be increased without increasing the total tax rate. So what that ultimately does is it leverages the state funding. Those four pennies yield uh additional state funding that was being left on the table. So the district did an excellent job in getting that approved and in nove November uh getting that passed and leveraging that state funding. The district has also uh done several bond

090defeasants. As I mentioned before, bond defeasence is when you have outstanding voter approved debt and you choose not only to make your annual payment but for also to pay an advanced payment on existing debts. What that does is in essence it reduces the interest rate that the taxpayers are having to pay. The very first defeasence began in August of 2023. Um although they are approved by the board in August uh the actual transaction does not happen until June. So in June 20124 um there was about 9.2 million in principal and interest that was defeased in the very first defeasence and uh 7.4 million were deposited in escrow account that will take care of those uh annual interest payments. um that money will be earning interest. So it it will be invested. So in in that

091time that those interest earnings will help pay off the bond debt. So without having to cost the taxpayers. So this resulted in an interest savings of $1.77 million to the taxpayers. There was a second defeasance in 2024 and this was uh total debt that was eliminated was $8.5 million and there was an an interest savings of $1.2 million. The district recently approved defeasence number three. This one is uh we're early in the process. Uh we have an estimate of 4.5 million of debt to be defeased and that would be the last one. Our next steps is that of course today the board held the public hearing on the tax rate and we'll uh be going out for approval on that and then in June 2012 26 that's when the district will deposit the funds in

092an escrow account uh depending on what that final number to defeats will be. Over time the district has lowered uh tax rates. As you can see in 2023 it was a little bit over a dollar and then in 2425 it went down to.9966 and we are currently proposing 9322 which is a difference of approximately 6 cents. Another part of this planning process of planning for a possible bond was to begin a facilities needs assessment. And this is a study of all our buildings. The study looks not only at the building condition, it looks at enrollment and capacity and utilization. It also looks at technology and it looks at our grounds. Um, in January of 2025, the board awarded the RFP for facilities needs assessment to MGT and they began in March with their work and

093meeting with the district. In May is when they actually did the physical walkthroughs. uh we had several teams with district personnel and the MGT staff as well as their uh consultant their uh subcontractor half engineering walk the campuses. So between May 19th and May 23rd these walkthroughs were conducted every single building was walked and data was collected. Uh the principles were also interviewed and then on on May 19th we held our very first facilities forecast advisory committee. This is a committee that is comprised of community members, uh, previous board members, uh, current board members, uh, principles, and, uh, administrative staff. So, uh, this committee gives feedback on the process as we're working through this facility needs assessment. Also with us that night was Estrada Noosa, our financial adviserss, and they provided a legislative update and

094the district also presented on uh budgeting issues in relation to the bond in a way of educating the community. The facilities needs assessment continued. In July, we held our third meeting to review the draft facilities needs assessment and we provided a process by which the committee would be invited to now walk through the different campuses. So in August, which was on the 5th through the 28th, we scheduled the the walks where we invited the facilities forecast advisory committee. our principles uh led those walkthroughs along with district administration and we were able to go to every single campus. On September 11, we held a community town hall. MGT presented uh draft results and they also provided us with a survey that was held live and we analyzed the results uh during the town hall. We have

095since published the survey. It is available for two weeks. uh it it started this week. So, we invite the community and you will get some reminders uh on social media. Also, if you're a staff member or an employee, you'll get text messages and you'll get emails from us uh with the link to the survey. So, we encourage everybody out there uh to fill that out. The next steps is that in October, we will be seeing the final report. And in summary, this is what the timeline look like. Thank you. My time is up. Just kidding. So, what is what is I'm almost done. What is our next step? Our next step is to hire a pre-bond planning services firm. And we've all actually already advertised for that. We advertised for that on Friday, uh, September

09619th. There will be a second advertisement on September 26, and it closes on October 3rd. We are hoping that we can get it to you as early as October 7th board meeting for a recommendation. However, if not, we give ourselves the cushion of the 21st, but we will really try to hit that October 7th board meeting. Um, so what does a pre-bond planning firm do? They help the district with things like marketing for a bond, making sure that that our efforts are successful. Uh, they also help with prioritizing the projects, the list of projects, uh, coming up with the recommendation on what that dollar amount should be. uh for the the bond issue uh and then also communicating with the community, holding town halls and and assisting in that manner. And now I'm going to

097pass it over to Mr. Trevinho. He's going to give us an update on the draft information from MGT. >> Good evening, members of the board. Dr. Mutieres u I'll be presenting on the preliminary uh numbers uh for our facility assessment uh studies that have been conducted and are still uh being uh processed. Here you see on this slide our capacity utilization results for our elementary campuses. As you can see uh the numbers in red uh signify inadequate space uh or approaching inadequate space or adequate space in green. Uh we do have two that are in red uh which is our uh Gonzalez elementary campus and our Milm uh campus as well. If you'll see on the bottom um the numbers do not include portables. Okay. So that's a big reason as you know those are

098two of our campuses that we have quite quite a number of portables at those campuses but they do also include the dual enrollment uh numbers. uh we we see some campuses in the green which is the 84 89 80 and then the rest of the campuses are hovering mostly around the green and the orange uh marks which are approaching inefficient space. The inefficient use of space is your 51, your 59, your 56 and your 48 which are your lowest enrolled campuses. Uh on this on this report these numbers that MGT is using these numbers are based on last year's enrollment numbers. Okay. Uh these are not current numbers as of today. Our next slide is our uh middle schools. You can also see we have Morris uh atund 136%. Uh Morris currently sits uh with

099pretty much our middle school with the most portables on site and that's a a big reason for that. The other schools are hovering in the 98 9079 96 area and overall is 89.5 for our middle school campuses. We also have our three comprehensive high schools with achieve early college high school in this slide. Macallen High School also has you know quite a bit of number of portables which sits at 120 which is the only campus that you see in red. We have the other two Rowan Memorial which are other two comprehensives at 104 and 107 and 87 for achieve for a total district for comprehensive schools at 10878. We also have our other facilities which include our ING center, our Utrgv Lamar and and these three make up our other other campuses that are figured

100into this uh uh data data sheet. We have 55.56 at ING. ING also has quite a bit of number of portables on campus. And we have Utrgv with a capacity of 600 which puts it at 70% which right currently last year they were at 350. Uh currently now I want to say they're hovering around the 450 475 mark. And the total for these is 68.21. We have an overall district score of 89.7 for our capacity and utilization. Uh here you see an overview of the whole district as a whole and you can see the colors. We also have the facility assessments uh which include our building condition, the educational suitability, the technology readiness, grounds condition and then our combined scores at the end. And this is using uh the basis software that MGT uses uh

101to be able to uh jot down all of our data and all the information that we'll be receiving at the end of of the report. Here you have the buil building condition scores for our elementary campuses, middle school campuses, high school, and the others uh which they're all hovering around the orange and green yellow areas uh for a district average of 73.58. We have the educational suitability uh which we have one one campus in red uh the rest of them are in the uh good to fair areas campus in red being ING. And here we have the technology readiness scores which most of the campuses are hovering around the good uh fair areas for a district score of 93.02. And then we have our grounds conditions. Our grounds conditions cover our uh flat work, sidewalks,

102parking lots, uh drainage, and uh the district score on this is a 79.2. Here we have our overall combined scores using the uh four different areas for a combined score. The district uh is sitting right now at a 76.22 22 on the preliminary numbers uh that they have for us. Just uh one note u eight years ago when this same software was used and and and this uh this study was done the dis the overall uh district average sat at around a 73 74 score and right now we're currently at a 76. Um >> can you explain explain what that two 3% difference is? is that >> well if if you go back that 2 3% difference uh if you go back here you'll see our weighted building condition score uh you you know that

103that only counts for a certain percent you have a suitability score of 30% of your overall score technology which is just a small 10% of the overall and the ground is another 10 uh to move that needle you know to a to the different level that takes quite a bit uh it takes uh you know some of your major projects some of your roofing some of uh major you know overlay on in parking lots uh different areas different improvements that have been done to some of the campuses and what this pretty much reflects u I know Mr. Kion had mentioned mentioned this to me at the meeting that we had uh coffee with the superintendent. Uh this goes to show you know that the district has been upkeeping uh with with what we have the

104resources that we have currently available and that we've managed to be able to maintain uh where where we've been at for for a while. Um, now it's time to move to another step from there, you know, into our newer buildings. Uh, making our our schools even safer and and trying to remove uh some of the portable buildings uh that have been there and improved with some of those new new uh new wings and and uh in some of our campuses. This here's a sample report that we'll be getting. Uh this is just a draft just to kind of show and give an overview of what every campus will look like. uh it will go over the the overall score on the very bottom. It will have the projected enrollment for the next 10 years to

105come. The projected utilization. The utilization is usually based on your uh your your scheduling factor, your programs that you have at your different campuses, whether they require uh labs, no labs, uh specialty programs. Uh some of your high schools will require more additional for your fine arts areas, athletic areas. So, it takes everything into account and you'll be able to see the prioritiz prioritization matrix that uh that will come with it with the sitem plan and it will also give us a priority list on the priority projects per campus based on the data that that has been collected. And that's all I have for the preliminary report. >> With us tonight is also Dr. Anel Magayanes from Estrada in case you have any questions on that part of the information. >> Okay. Thank you. I'll

106open it up for questions. >> All right. Well, I look forward to seeing the final report. >> Thank you. >> We've been anxiously waiting >> around mid October. >> All right. Well, thank you. Thank you guys for all you do. >> Thank you all. >> That was for information purposes only. We will move forward to 7C5 discussion and possible action on the approval and adoption of the resolution for the 2025 tax rate. Dr. the truth in taxation. The Texas education code and board policy CCG require districts to set the tax rate for the current tax year. We are requesting approval and adoption of a resolution for the 2025 tax rate. A record vote is required and administration is recommending action on this item and Miss Lorena Garcia presented at the beginning of the meeting the

107the tax rate that it will be dropping 6 cents from 99 cents to 93 cents. It's the the adoption of the tax rate which will be 6 cents less for taxpayers. >> Okay, I'll open it up for discussion if the board has any. If not, then I will There's a two-part motion. >> Okay. Um, I move to approve that the property tax rate be increased by the adoption of a tax rate of 9322 cents, which is effectively a 7.64% increase in the tax rate. I'll second. >> Okay. I have a motion by trusted, second by trusty Hadad. And this has to be taken by record vote. So, I will call out everybody individual. Trusty Regal >> I. >> Trusty Hadad I. >> Trusty Vera. >> I trusty Pñena. >> I >> trusty Karion >> approve.

108>> Trusty dear Lopez. >> Hi. >> All right. Then we have a 6 eyes the for the motion for the recommended tax rate. It has been approved. There is another motion. >> Mr. President, I move to approve the resolution setting the 2025 tax rate of the Macallen Independent School District for the year beginning January 1st, 2025 and ending December 31st, 2025. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Trusty Pñena, a second by Trusty Dear Lopez. And once again, we will take a record vote. Trusty Regal >> I. >> Trusty Adi I. >> Trusty Rivera. I trust Pena >> I. >> Trusty Karion >> approve. >> Trustee Deagar Lopez >> I. Okay, we have 6 eyes in favor of uh approving the resolution. It is approved. Thank you guys. >> Thank you. >> And we

109move forward to 7C6 discussion and possible action on approval of self-funded medical plan rates and benefits for 2025 2026. Dr. The district sponsors a self-funded medical and pharmacy plan, which is a benefit plan for its employees. The district works with a benefits consultant to develop and implement his strategic plan with funding and cost control strategies. Mr. Andy Silva, director of employee benefits and safety, risk management, will present this report and administration is recommending approval on this item. Go ahead, Mr. Silva. >> Uh good evening uh board president Ria, trustees, uh superintendent Dr. Dr. Gutierrez. So I'm here to present administration's recommendation for uh the district self-funded uh medical plan rates and benefits. So I'm going to begin first by uh saying what is not being recommended. I think it's just important to note that there

110is no recommendation to increase the contributions the employees uh contribute on a monthly basis toward their b medical benefits. So that's for starters. Uh the second thing that is not being recommended, which is different from what I presented here a couple of weeks ago, was that we're no longer recommending any changes to the co-pay, deductible, co- insuranceances, out-of-pocket maximums, no benefit changes that were discussed at the last meeting. So th those two things are not being recommended. What is being recommended is uh to discontinue the state and the high plan. And I'll go over some of that here in a little more detail. and to move to a single plan offering uh that being the basic plan and we're still recommending to establish a fourth uh pharmacy co-ay tier based on a co insurance of

11130%. So by way of review uh on the screen there is what we currently offer. There's three plans uh the basic high and the state. They had varying deductibles uh varying co- insuranceances out of pockets uh and of course uh costs. What they have in common is only the prescription drug co-pays. They're all identical regardless of of plan. So that that's what we offer currently. But what the recommendation is is to move to one single plan. So, no longer offering the high plan and the state plan, continue offering the basic plan. Uh, and the basic plan for the most part are the same benefits at the same cost with the one added change of as I mentioned adding a fourth uh coins co-ay tier co based on co insurance for uh GLP1 medications. So, that

112would be the one additional uh recommendation we're making. So, th those two things. Uh now by way of what it looks in terms of the the fund what we have here is an illustration on on the the cost. So they're listed as current reflects what our projections what our estimates are if we make no changes. Uh this does include a revised uh expense projection. uh at the last meeting uh we were asked to go go to United Healthcare and see what they could help us with in terms of projecting out what our expenses could be. So we we shared some data uh they ran some some models and they provided us with a factor that we can then use to update our projection and it did change by about half a million dollars. So that

11329 million 437 is reduced from what we originally presented which was uh 30 million. So, uh there there is a an anticipation that our expenses would be about half a million less. Uh so that's built into this uh illustration. Uh so again, if we make no changes, uh we we project that we would have a $2 million approximately uh fund deficit at the end of the fiscal year next year. What we're proposing is that last column there is that single plan with that GLP1 tier. When we look at the same expenses with the same revenue, then factor in what we we would anticipate in savings from making those changes, uh the fund would potentially be uh 1.7 in the black. Um again, what's different from here, and you can tell by that line item, benefit

114plan changes. There was a deductible increase proposed of 250. There was a hospital admin copay that was being proposed. There was a change to a specialist copay. As you can see there, it's listed as NA. That's not being recommended. So, it's not factored in here. What is factored in here is what I mentioned, the discontinuation of the state plan, the GLP1 co insurance. Uh having a single plan model and a 340 uh BRX mail order program that's actually already been implemented. Uh we anticipate that might be 250,000 a year in savings. That's already built into the savings. Uh so that's what the outlook would look assuming we either make no changes or assuming the changes that are being recommended are made. So this slide here is a little different uh not different uh you hadn't

115seen this before. We talked a lot about and uh last meeting and that's one of the reasons it's on here GOP ones. So this is the list of the GOP ones. Uh as you can see there's several out there. uh most of them have no generic available. Some of them were able to source internationally. Uh the cost domestically versus internationally does does vary. When there's opportunities to source it internationally, that's that's our our primary u sourcing. Uh but what's important to note here is that uh there's several that are diabetes and some that are weight loss. The weight loss medications are not necessarily on our radar to control the cost. Why is that? Our plan does not cover for weight loss medications. So, those aren't necessarily uh projected to be concerns for our plan. The

116diabetes medications, those were already uh causing the plan some increased cost. Uh more recently, that's with Mjouro. And in this particular uh class of drugs, I want to give you some data. We have 231 utilizers in in in these medications. Of those 231 utilizers, uh 97 are in our international uh mail order program. So they're actually paying zero. Uh there's no cost to them. So if we were to implement this recommendation, potentially 134 of those 231 utilizers would be subject to that co insurance difference. Uh now the way we're structuring it is they have options to move to different medications. For example, one of those that's that's available internationally. Then they would pay zero. That's obviously a conversation they would need to have with their physician if it's appropriate that that would be an option

117and that's an option for them. Now, additionally, uh we would make every effort to make sure employees would be aware of the uh cost uh the co-pay assistance programs from the manufacturers because oftent times even though there's a co-pay associated with medications, those co-pay cards or manufacturer assistance kick in at the pharmacy and and the employee actually pays less than what the health plan co- insuranceances are. So those are other opportunities for uh any one of these uh 134 potentially impacted utilizers to reduce the cost beyond this uh proposed uh 30% co insurance. Now the other thing to note here and this is something that's brand new. So we had a conversation here last time about uh WGOI. Hopefully I pronounced that correctly. It it is primarily for weight loss. So again not on our

118radar. we wouldn't have expected it to be uh utilized but just late August early September uh it's being approved for another indication so it's not just for weight loss anymore it's it's being approved for for a condition called MASH uh metabolic dysfunction associated stio hepatitis so it's a serious form of fatty liver disease uh some of the data that's available to us indicates that 5 to 10% of the US population has that particular diagnosis uh so that opens it up for our our health plan to start approving this medication even though it's primarily for weight loss. Now it's uh approved for MASH. So we expect that it could mean a 560,000 to 700,000 plus increase in drug spend without any cost containment controls. So if we leave things alone, we think that's what we can

119expect. Having a co- insurance tier will help offset some of those costs. That's what I was trying to communicate in our last conversation about trying to futureproof our plan. Medications are coming online all the time. Uh Monro is being reviewed potentially for other indications. If those happen to be approved by the FDA, then then those additional uh indications will be available for another group of employees. So these particular drugs are a source of challenge for health plans, not just ours. You know, you can ask any other school district. I do have Mr. Osa here from Valley Risk Consulting who can attest to that. He is seeing it, you know, in his other accounts. Uh it's just a challenge and the strategies to control it, the cost, they're they're limited. uh we could put exclusions to

120these drugs, but that's kind of the extreme. Uh so our strategy is just to put in another level of sharing of that cost. The health plan would pay 70% of the cost. The employee would pay 30% of the cost. That's identical to what the basic plan medical co- insuranceances are. So uh any medical plan uh procedure where a claim is process of pay there's a 30% concern. So it it's very similar. So that's on GOP medications. Uh the last two slides are just for reference as we have the conversation. Uh these are the plan comparisons. Uh how we compare against other school districts base plans. They're not all identical. They're called different things, but these are their what they call their lower plans, base plans, entry level plans. Uh this is one that I've showed

121before. So again, it's just there for reference as we have further discussion. And very similarly, oh that's a terrible looking slide. I'm not sure what happened there. That is the enrollment. Hopefully it shows up different on on your on your information. I'm not sure. >> Yeah. So it's just again uh uh the enrollment for each of the different plans and the cost of the basic, the high and the state. So So with that, I'm going to ask Mr. Gasa to come up here with us right here behind me. Uh and we'll be happy to answer any questions you might have. >> Thank you, Andy. Um I guess I got two sets of questions. one regarding the the proposal here to move from a single sorry to move from three plans to a single plan. I

122mean what this essentially means is that we're offering employees the plan with the lowest premiums but it comes with higher cost shares but the coverage is also the same >> and you're referring to the the two that >> moving from a three plan offer into a one plan offer. So the the two other plans that we're proposing to discontinue, they're richer plans, higher benefits. So yes, anybody who is in one of those plans would have opportunity to migrate to the basic plan. And yes, the benefits would be lower than what they were used to. The cost would be lower as well, but the benefits would be lower. >> The cost share is increased, but the what the plan covers, the conditions, hospitalizations, etc. is the same. It's just comes with a higher cost share. Correct.

123>> Correct. >> Okay. Because I know employees have reached out to me and then we heard some comments today. There's a lot of concern amongst our employees that you know when we make these changes that now they're just going to get denied, denied, denied, denied. And I think that's the second set of questions I have moving um if we do move from Blue Cross Blue Shield to United. Um a lot of uh employees cited you know headlines about United fraud allegations uh schemes that United Health Plan goes and denies denies denies in order to reap the benefit but I was hoping you can kind of discuss that those concerns here and as well as what we would be engaging to do specifically. >> Sure. So, so I I'll start by saying that uh the groups

124that we contract with do not serve as our insurance company and and I am going to let Mr. Vatza speak to the distinctions between a third party administrator, administrative ser services only provider and an insurance company that because that's what's important here. So when we talk about Blue Cross or United Healthcare for Mac ISD, we're not talking about changing insurance companies. We're talking about changing who might administer the district's self-funded medical plan. And so the plan is actually designed by Mac ISD as we're having discussions here. The board can decide what that plan design is. The board can decide what those rates are. uh we just need somebody TPA administrative service only provider to actually administer it for us because of the complexities of managing a a self uh funded health plan. Anything you want

125to add to that? >> Good evening trust. Sorry about that. Trust Dr. Gutierrez and members of the board of trustees. Roger Garca for the for the record. Uh so there's been a lot of discussion regarding insurance and you know and I' and I've heard the discussions throughout the valley through the years. So what you have is benefits. You offer benefits to your employees. You don't offer insurance. Insurance is a transfer of risk. We are actually the insurance carrier ourselves and the board of trustees acts acts as the fiduciary trustees of that plan. So when people ask me are we switching insurance carriers? No we're just switching administrators. So we tell the administrator exactly what we want to pay what we pay and we have a plan document that we present to them that they have

126to administer in accordance with what what we have provided to them. So when people say I have a I have a doctor that's not in the network we actually can instruct the uh the administrator to include that physician as well. They negotiate the contracts on our behalf. So that's all they do. So typically all they're doing for us is uh um administer the plan in accordance with the Affordable Care Act. And one of the primary things to remember and I apologize because I run out of breath very quickly is we're not governed by the Texas Department of Insurance. We actually are governed by the Texas Educational Agency and this is here in the state, but federally we're governed by the Affordable Care Act. That's the only thing that we answer to the board answers to

127as well. So, United Healthcare does not determine coverage. I mean, they process the the claims, but it's our health plan, MISD, that determines coverage. Moving from Blue Cross Blue Shield to United is not going to change um what coverage we provide our employees. Is that correct? >> That is correct. Yes, sir. And actually, I simplified things and I think I've done it in the past. The only thing that's changed is the color of the card. That's it. You're going from blue to green or white, whatever it is. But it's not you're not changing any of the scope of services. Everything is still the same. The networks are almost identical as you you heard during the presentations. So we're not changing benefits. We're just changing administrators or the people that write the checks. >> And does

128the third party administrator in this case potentially United would they have an incentive to um as in some of the articles you read online to just deny deny deny? >> No sir. because we actually have an account that they're going to be drafting. >> It's not their money, it's MISD's money. >> Exactly. Yes. And they have to send us a check register. So, we actually get to see what they're doing. >> Okay. >> If I may add to that, uh, one of the key steps of this whole transition is a implementation process, very extensive implementation process with lots of steps. And one of the key steps is a review of the current plan design to make sure it gets built exactly the same way into the new administrator's uh system. So that is one of

129the steps we go through to make sure everything's checked off, everything is set up identically. Um Mr. G is correct that uh we fund, they pay, we fund, so it's not their money, there's no incentive for them to deny a claim. Uh our expectation is they administer it the way we have it designed. So uh that is our expectation and that's from day one that's how we start the process >> and ultimately if our third party administrators not paying claims faithfully per the plan design uh mist can step in and uh require them to do so. Correct. >> Absolutely. That that's part of what my office uh works with employees all the time. If they have any question on claims usually they come come through us. So let let's say there's a claim where they

130think it was paid inappropriately. So they bring it to us, we get their EOB, we look at it, and then we start making calls to make sure we get them to the right person to make sure they look at it. Uh we also obviously take a look at our plan book. Uh that's that's available to all our employees. They can see what what the plan pays, any exclusions, all the fine print, all that's available to them. Uh so that could be a starting point for them to research it themselves. But yes, there's steps in place to make sure any claim where an employee is not and a provider actually when employer or provider is not satisfied with how it was adjudicated their steps for review >> and I did want to ask some questions on

131the sorry I guess third set of questions on the GOPs. >> Yes sir. Um, so I do have a concern of moving from um, I guess 0% or not 0% co insurance, but moving up to 30% co insurance for GOPs because some of these medicines are vital to our employees who do have diabetes and it's a significant cost share. Um, can you explain a little bit more about the WGOI and how we get to a potential 5 to $700,000 annual cost without the co insurance? >> Sure. So that's just based on an expectation that we're going to start seeing more of these prescriptions filled for something other than weight loss for reggoi because reggoi currently is not covered if it's strictly an indication of weight loss. So if a claim if a prescription gets filled

132or attempt to get filled and there is no documentation currently uh that is for MASH it would be denied. Health plan doesn't pay for it. But now because MASH is a is included then any prescription where there's documentation and and that's a function of our other administrator our pharmacy benefit administrator uh they would review the medical records and if there's there's support medical support for that condition then that will be approved. So that number just is an estimate of what we think we're going to expect as more of these claims start coming forward where physicians start recognizing that now there's a new drug available to treat uh th this form of fatty liver disease. So we'll be seeing more of those prescriptions being written. And do we do we really have a a number of

133employees um with MASH or fatty liver disease that we would see this up to $700,000 annually? >> Yeah. So I I don't have any data specifically on those diagnosis. I don't think we we'd have access to that. This is strictly an estimate based on that 5 to 10% population kind of extrapolated out to what percentage of our employees potentially could be diagnosed with that and then those prescriptions filled. And then you and I discussed and you were going to look it up. If if we did the co insurance from 30% to 20% to alleviate some of those cost sharing for our employees, what would that >> Yes, sir. >> um result in. >> Yes, sir. So, I went back to uh one of our original presentations because it it it's been on all the presentations,

134I think, except the last one where we finally decided to make an administration administrative recommendation of 30%. But we had originally uh included an option of a 20% co insurance. And that 20% co insurance savings projection that we had uh modeled was that it would mean an 8 $185,000 savings versus at 30% uh we're projecting 278,000. So a difference of 93,000 to go from a 30% to a 20% co insurance. I would be in favor of that. I mean 93 we're you're we're going to lose 93. The plan would pay about 93,000 more is what I'm saying. >> That's 93,000 we're going to save >> At 20% that our employees would save out of pocket costs. And these are diabetes patients >> that need this medication, not um >> weight loss, >> not cosmetic. >>

135Mr. is asking me to talk about the co-pay assistance program. So I kind of alluded to it. You want to speak more? >> Sure. >> And once again, and this has been an issue across the valley, by the way. It's not not isolated to Macau. In fact, we just had a meeting this morning at Cameron County where they identified these drugs that costing the county almost 48% of its entire pharmacy cost. So, we're actually proposing some copay assistance because they're actually asking us, can we increase it to a 40% copay? And if we do that, then you're going to have copay assistance from the manufacturer itself. So, we actually can actually devise that program for the employees where we can put a patient advocate to be able to assist them to get these uh coupons

136quickly without having to wait as well. And you can take those savings and put them back in the planet uh accordingly. Have we not had that before? >> They're they're out there actually, but since the out of pocket cost is so nominal, it employees don't take advantage of it. But if you put a say a 20% co-pay uh on the uh uh GOP ones, then you can actually get the manufacturer to go ahead and pay the difference for you. In fact, if you see the commercials at the bottom, it'll tell you for assistance in payments, you'll call this 1-800 number, which is going to make it more convenient for them. And that's available at 20% or 30%. >> Or 30%. Yes, sir. >> Why haven't we t Why haven't I mean, maybe we have not

137taken more advantage of that if that's available. I mean, is there not anybody? >> The copay is too too low. So, it doesn't it doesn't attract attention. But in cases like this, you know, it does and that's what a lot of entities are starting to do now. >> Yeah. If I may, so uh to trust's question, we hadn't had a formal program, but but those benefits have existed and our employees have t taken advantage of it. Uh but it's correct when when he mentions that it's health plans that had co- insuranceances of 20% or 30% or a flat number that was significantly higher than a 750 or 25 or it could have been a $100 copay or $200 copay. That's when these uh copay assistance programs are really being utilized because obviously it is a

138lot of money when you go to to the pharmacy and and you get hit with a hundred or $200. So that's when the copay assistance programs kind of slide in and help out the employees. >> Well, and I'd like to I'd like to make sure that employees are hearing that and and that they know that. I can't tell you how many times I've been to the pharmacy and and like one of my meds costs over a thousand dollars, you know, and so I want to make sure that we're letting our employees know that that's an option for them. Every little bit helps, especially when you're on long-term medications. And you know, um I'll let you finish, but I just want to reiterate that I don't like the single plan because we're offering everybody one plan.

139those people that have extensive conditions or conditions that are long-term, you know, um that require 12, 13, which is what I take, 13 meds a day. Um, I need and there's people like that like me in the district that need 12, 13 or more medicines and we should have or our employees should have the option to pay just a little bit more to be able to get those medicines at a decent price. And so I don't like it, but if that's what um we're going to go with, I want our employees to have all the knowledge they can. And I want Mr. Varsa, I want our employees to know that there is an assistance program, a coupon, a coupon program. You know, Good RX, uh Walgreens, uh has one as well. Um because that's important.

140You know, some people can't be without their meds and they will go without their meds if they don't have other options. >> Thank you so much for that information and actually it's it's valuable information. Uh but I do want to assure the board the only changes that are happening is on the medical side. The pharmacy side is going to remain the same for the exception of the GOP ones. So that's the only thing that's being affected. But on the medical side that's you know the the health plans yes we are coming down to one but on the pharmacy it's going to be the same the same program to the exception of the GOP ones with the additional co-pay I don't have anything further uh unless you all have other questions or feedback >> I just

141have a comment um I appreciate you going back and the team and reworking this Um maybe we're not sort of exactly at the middle just yet, but this new plan that you all are proposing today in the suite of strategies does relieve some of the potential financial burden on families um and enrolles in the district. And I thank you all for going back and doing that additional level of work to get us to this place today. >> Yeah, I think I reiterate trusty guy. I apologize. Just went into questions, but you all did a lot of work between last meeting and this meeting. So thank you for that. Okay. Any further discussion? >> Mr. President, I would like to move for um adoption of the recommendation with the exception that I would um would like

142to see the co-ay for the GOPs at 20%. Sorry, the co- insurance at 20%. >> Am I allowed to make that? >> You are. >> Right, John? >> Yeah. Motion. >> Okay, we have a motion by trusty Hadad. We have a second. >> I'll second. >> And a second by Trusty Kion. All those in favor? >> I. All oppose. >> I >> Okay. Motion passes 42. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> This one. >> Yeah. >> Okay. Uh we are going to move on to 7C8 >> discussion and possible action on the Macan Independent School District August budget amendment for fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2025 and ending June 30th, 2026. Dr. Gutas, >> uh we recommend approval of the August 2025 uh budget amendment for the 2526 fiscal year. Miss Lorena Garcia, our deputy

143superintendent for business and operation will present more information and we are recommending action on this item. Go ahead, Miss Garcia. >> Yes, sir. Um, our budget amendment um is uh looks a little bit complicated and the reason for that is because this is a time of year when we bring forward our carry forwards. And what a carry forward is is a transaction or a budgeted amount that was budgeted in a prior fiscal year that for some reason the project did not uh get completed by June 30th and it's going to continue on into this new fiscal year. Uh or maybe the project has not begun but the budget was set aside at that time. So that purchase order or that budget amount gets carried forward into the new year. So as you can see revenues

144um increased by 46,586 and primarily that was uh donations but on the expenditure side the expenditure side uh increased by $4 million. So to uh make this simpler for you um 3 million of those 4 million are all carry forwards. They were all projects that got started in a prior year. For example, if you look at function 51, we have uh plant and maintenance operation projects, 924,000 from prior year work orders and contracts. And then function 52, we have 1.4 million for camera surveillance and panic alert uh systems. Function 81 was also construction, 213,000 for light poles engineering and uh an a farm payment that is is is owed. Uh so that's where you're seeing the bulk of the transactions. And like I said, all of this was is not necessarily impacting that we're drawing

145new funding from fund balance. is we're taking money that was already previously set aside in a prior fiscal year and then uh carrying it forward so that the project can be completed in this fiscal year. Um as far as projects that do hit fund balance, we have uh we have about a million dollars 9994,899. Those do hit 199. Uh those are a withdrawal on 199. We have uh $300,000 that was requested by uh for college board exams. We also have uh $6,000 to purchase a trailer for uh fine arts. They were renting a trailer for about 13,000 for three months a year and we were able to find one for for about 17,500. Uh so we gave them the money because it's cheaper to buy than to rent. Um they also uh needed some new

146mariachi uniforms. So we set aside $20,000 and for them uh and then uh to start off the middle school mariachi program uh we were requested to provide 4 14,454 and then uh 17,757 was set aside for marching band uniforms, flags and accessories. And this one is kind of one from last year because last year you all approved a h 100,000 for the marching bands. However, she didn't spend about 60,000 of that money. So now uh she asked if she could have it and spend it this year. So So you're going to see a couple of fine arts uh amendments in the coming months. That's her spending down that 60,000 that she didn't spend last year. And then uh uh we did receive a request that the three high schools uh well the auditorium uh lighting

147boards were in bad shape. Um however uh not just one high school but they're all uh pretty much beyond their useful life. So uh we received a request for 100,000 105,000 and that takes care of all three high schools. Um, the other one is you will see an agenda item later on tonight for a Chromebook lease for 4,200 uh Chromebook uh laptops and those are for student use. Uh it's a 4-year lease payment and the first year lease payment would come due this year in the amount of 500,000 531,648. So these are the the transactions that we are recommending out of 199 and the rest are from uh the different uh other funds. Um and carry forwards if there's any question on any particular transaction. I know it is a long report. Uh I can

148answer questions. We also have a capital capital projects budget in addition to to the general fund and this is 661,000 and that also in encompasses uh carry forward POS. They're for HVAC improvements uh stadium turf replacement light poles and the silent panic alarm system. Do you all have any questions on any particular transaction? What is the reason something gets delayed for that long? >> Um well like for example there is an escrow payment that is due to the city for the a farm when the egg farm was created and we have not been invoiced but that money was set aside several years back. So we keep carrying it forward. At some point we're going to say, you know what, and actually I was thinking of doing it this coming year um to where we just

149put it back into unassigned and if that invoice ever comes in, then we'll just withdraw it at that come to the board with an amendment. Another reason is uh the timing of some some uh projects uh by the time they they go through the bid process and the contracting process and then it takes uh you know quite a few months to actually implement and so uh that doesn't happen neatly between uh June June through July >> there's some spillage over into the following months uh so that will happen it's happens mostly with your construction construction and then we have some small transactions that were ordered late in the year that were ordered maybe in the summer and they didn't get received or or services that were not completed by the end of the year. That's

150why you see you see that but you will see that every single year. >> All right. Any further discussion? And there is a >> I have a motion by trustee. >> Second by trustee. >> All in favor? >> I. >> All opposed. Motion passes 6. And I do want to make a notation that I realize I skipped over 7 C7. And I will be bringing that forward now. Those of you watching, me a coupon. All right. Discussion and possible action on request for proposal number 2026 100008 onetoone initiative technology equipment for students with service and leasing options. Dr. Gutierrez, the floor is yours. >> Administration solicited proposals for technology equipment for students with Judith Escamia, executive director for technologies available to answer any questions. We are recommending action on this item and this is a

151three-part u action item. Okay, we'll open it up for discussion if the board has any questions. >> I do not. I'd like to u make a motion to approve the ranking of request for proposal number 2026 1008 one to1 initiative technology equipment for students with service and leasing options and award the highest ranked vendor as listed on the attached evaluation matrix. The term for the onetime purchase shall be for a period of one year from the effective date of the contract with the option to renew for three additional one-year terms. The term for the lease shall be for a period of four years total. >> Second. >> Okay. I have a motion by trusty pena and a second by trustee. All in favor? >> I. >> All oppose. >> The motion passes 6. Mr. Mr.

152President, I I move that the board approve that administration begins contract negotiations with the highest ranked firm. If the district is unable to negotiate a satisfactory contract with the selected firm, the district shall formally and in writing end negotiations with that firm and proceed to the next firm in the order of the selection ranking until a contract is reached or all submitts are rejected. >> Second. >> All right. I have a motion by trustee and a second by trustee Pñena. All in favor? >> I. All opposed. Motion passes 6. >> Mr. President, I'd like to make a motion to authorize the superintendent to execute a lease agreement and related documents once contract negotiations have been successfully achieved for a period of four years. >> Second. >> I have a motion by Trusty Pena, a second

153by Trustee Regalado. All those in favor? >> All oppose. Motion passes. 6. Okay. Item 7D, board of trustee item 7D1, approval of board of education meeting minutes for the regular board meeting on August 26, the special board meeting September 2nd, and the special board meeting September 9th. >> I move to approve. >> I have a motion by trustee Pñena. >> Second >> and a second by trustee Garca Lopez. All in favor? >> I opposed. >> Motion passes 6. And we have 72. Discussion and possible action of travel by board of trustees to the Tazby fall legal seminar November 15, 2025. >> Move to approve. >> Second. >> Okay. I have a motion by trusty Pñena, second by trustee. All in favor? >> I oppose. Motion passes 60. >> Okay. And we are moving on to

154close session. And the board of trustees may go into close session pursuant to sections 551071, 551072, 551074, 551076, and 551089 of the Texas Government Code to discuss the following: human resources recommendations, discussion of human resources employee resignations, discussion of intruder detection audit, pending and potential litigation, possible real estate acquisition, and that is it. At 7:53 we are going into Close. All right everybody, welcome back. It is 9:02 and we are reconvening in open session. We are moving forward. Uh action items in close session 10A. Discussion possible action. Human resource recommendations for school year 202526. >> Human resources submitted a list of recommendations for the 2526 school year under a separate cover for discussion during close session. Administration is recommending action on this item. >> So moved. >> Second. >> A motion by trustee. Second by

155trustee Pñena. All in favor? >> I. All oppose. Motion passes 6 and 10B. Uh discussion of human resources employee resignations retirees for school year 2526. Dr. >> Human resources submitted a list of resignations and retirees for the 2526 school year under a separate cover for discussion during close session. This item is for information purposes only. >> All right. 10 >> to approve. >> It's a information. >> Oh, that was sorry. >> 10. >> Yeah. >> 10 C. Uh discussion of intruder detection audit report findings. >> Nothing there. Uh 10 Mr. Another report >> and same thing Tenny. >> Same announcement. >> Thank you, sir. >> Thank you. >> Scheduled meetings at this boardroom, Dr. Garo Chapa. Uh we have one October 7th. It's a special meeting 5:00 p.m. Uh regular board meeting October 7th, 5:30

156and another regular board meeting October 21st at 5:30 p.m. At this time, I do want to wish Miss Sophia Pena a very happy birthday. >> Happy birthday. >> Thank you. [Laughter] And I will also entertain a motion to adjurnn. >> So move. >> All right. I have a motion by trusty, second by trustee. All in favor? >> All opposed? Motion passes 6. We are adjourned at 9:04. Thank you everybody. Good night.