001Good afternoon everyone. Thank you all for being here Tuesday, August 12th uh for our regular board meeting of the board of trustees. Item number one is call this meeting to order. I've done so at 5:30. Item number two, moment of silence, please. >> Thank you. Number three, pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, for liberty and justice for all. >> That was fast. >> Tell them to slow down. >> In the spirit of that, public comments. Uh, no public comment. So, we'll move on. Item number five, consent agenda items. Mr. President, I move to approve items 5 A to M with the exception of 5F which has been pulled, right? >> Yes, >> that's
002correct. >> All right. I have a motion by trusted regal, second by trusted dear. All in favor? >> I. All oppose. Motion passes. 70. Item number six 6A uh report regarding a new initiative for 18 plus student program. Dr. Gutz. >> Uh yes. Uh thank you Mr. President and board of trustees. Uh administration will provide a report on the new initiative of an 18 plus student program that uh perhaps we want to start in Macallen ISD. Dr. Deoyos, associate superintendent for instructional services will have more information on this item. This is for information purposes only and we have a PowerPoint to uh present to the board. Go ahead. >> That's right. Thank you, Dr. Good evening board. We are here at MelanD. Our goal is to always offer opportunities for all students. And so looking
003at our student outcomes, we also have a particular group that probably we are um not uh serving. and those are the individuals that have not completed a graduation diploma and they're in age 18 through 26. So with that um in mind, we also would like to um increase our student enrollment and offer this opportunity to those students that are 18 plus that have not completed a a high school diploma. Like I said, um this uh 18 plus program we have we would like to call it the Mallen ISD step up program and is for individuals age 18 to to 26 who have not earned a high school diploma. It will be a flexible, free and effective pathway to a high school diploma. It will be housed at uh Mallalenist Lamar campus and we're looking at
004probably beginning September 2025. We will generate school average daily attendance and we will improve options for Mckllen citizens and also surrounding communities. Um the impact in the in the community is to strengthen the regional workforce by providing employers with more job ready credentialed candidates reduces generational poverty by empowering young adults with the education needed for better paying jobs. We also believe that it will support local families, especially young parents, by modeling the importance of education and increase local graduation rates and close educational equity gaps. Um, when we look at the data at Mallen ISD, we do have an extremely low dropout rate, which is a good problem to have. Yet, we know that the dropout data is based on where the student goes when they withdraw from our district or from any district. It's only
005reported where they're going. Yet, there's not much followup without all the different districts in the in the region uh if the student that left the district really completed a high school diploma. So what we can base ourselves is if we do have a need in the valley and what we can base on is on the Idalgo County data. So the Idalgo County data shows that currently right now though the population that is between 18 and 24 years of age 14,448 of those members of the community do not have a high school diploma. Now, this could be students that were at risk and they left their district. It could be dis uh students that came from other region of the state or the nation. It could also be students that probably withdrew from a district to
006get on an online uh home school uh or just home school in general and they got disconnected from a from the district support or and then most of the other uh is unknown. So to conclude this slide, the valley data looks like that we have about 14,000 plus uh people without a high school diploma currently right now. Now if we don't have programs like this in districts, we don't offer programs like this in our districts, that number can only increase. So, Mallen ISD is committed to serving all students and we want to pilot this program for the individuals aged 18 through 26 who have not earned a high school diploma yet. Like I said earlier, this program or programs like this will improve options not only for our Mallen ISD um ex students, but it
007will also provide options for our surrounding communities. So we will pro we're expecting to increase our enrollment by inviting those students that are out there in the surrounding communities. Now some logistics uh on on this program and then in the next slide I will discuss funding. Uh this program we're planning to uh run it in a 4hour probably half day uh uh sessions morning and afternoon and students that have other responsibilities can take advantage of either the morning or the afternoon sessions. Uh the attendance will follow the optional flexible school day model similar to what our students um are right now currently in K through2 students that are in the flex program that will generate the full day attendance through a 4hour program. The stepup program accountability will be part of the comprehensive high schools.
008It won't be a standalone campus. So we won't be at risk of of having a a a campus with a uh low accountability or or you know we won't have that at risk um of any new uh program uh especially because it's a pilot program we will keep it as part of the Capri houses high schools students will not be co-mingled I know that I've gotten a lot of questions about this students in this program being that they are 18 plus they will not be together. They will be separate and apart from students on the Lamar campus. Uh we have already dedicated uh some classrooms and uh restrooms are being built and a cafeteria area is already devoted to the this the students in this program. So students will receive wraparound services as well. uh
009side of all the supports that we have here at Mallen ISD, we will also have a partnership with region one that will provide wraparound services in the social emotional mental health support. The cost um so what is our investment the facility pretty much we have an area there at Lamar that is not being utilized right now by students and it is divided by a fence. So, the students will be separated apart, like I said earlier, from the Lamar students and um the cost that we're looking at is basically the the building of the restrooms. Um and talking to Mr. Trevino and he's here tonight. If you have additional questions, he can address them. Uh the work will be done inhouse. So, the materials that will be used is more or less around $5,000. We currently
010have a principal and she's in attendance also, Miss Sanchez there at Lamar and she will oversee this small program that we're thinking probably no less than 50 students to start off this pilot program curriculum. We are currently have a evidence-based uh credit recovery program that we will be utilizing and the investment mostly will be our teachers. So we're looking at four teachers uh at least the core and then they will also uh be trained to do the credit recovery for the elective courses and then the partnership with region one for the wraparound services. Total this investment will be at around $280,000. And then if we calculate the full day ADA for these 50 students, we're looking at $310,750 that will probably still have some some about 30,000 to work with if we uh are in
011need of resources or supplies uh for the program. timeline to start the program uh is as soon as we brought this presentation information to you. We want to start the recruitment process tomorrow and uh we have Miss Lisa Kavasos that is going to take us through the recruitment and also who is the target audience and then also she already created a flyer for our recruitment. So to finalize my part of the presentation, we are looking at hopefully finalizing those restrooms and finalizing everything, the setup and um hiring of the teachers by September 12th, give or take, and class starts on September 15. So now I have Miss Lisa Kavasos to do the recruitment part. Good evening everyone. Um so we are very excited to um expand our department to include this 18 to 26 year
012old program. We want this effort to be really collaborative, to be really positive, to be just um kind of a shining light, right, for the district for individuals who need this particular um program. We have a tagline, your diploma, your future. Let's finish what you started. And you'll notice it's we, it's us, we're helping, right? We want to make sure that we market this and communicate in all recruitment efforts that this is a collaboration. This is a support and an assistance and something that we're doing really for for the betterment of our community. Um, our student recruitment team, our student outreach team will lead the recruitment effort. Um, this is what we do. So, we know how to boots on the ground. We know how to knock on doors. We know how to talk to
013partners. So, this is just an expansion of the work that's already um led by my department. Uh we know that we'll leverage all the usual platforms. So social media, website, again boots on the ground um and then promotion via media outlets like radio and or TV. This of course will be done in close collaboration with our um communications and marketing department. So um can't do it alone obviously. Um and where we're going with this is the lowest hanging fruit that's the fruit tree um are Mallen ISD levers, right? So, we know um in running the data over the last few years of students that would fall into this 18 to 26 year old um bracket, there are about a thousand students, a thousand individuals that are not classified as levers. They're not classified as dropouts,
014but we don't know where they went, right? They've left us. Maybe they left for um a homeschool program or an online school program or we just don't know, right? So, we're um really targeting those students that told us they were going to a place to complete a thing, but we're not sure if they did or not. We have contact information at least for the time that they were with us as students. Um and sometime in some cases that's moms and dads of grown adults, right? But, uh we have a lifeline to those individuals. Second would be our Macallend parents. So, we have a community of adults that are living and working um that may fall into this uh bracket as well as well as our staff. Um made a beautiful contact earlier in in uh
015in in the month um in our Ethalgo County Head Start program who has dedicated um family service individuals who work specifically with the parents of our Head Start students um to find them employment and to find them GED programs. This is a beautiful opportunity to expand that collab that partnership as well. And then our our partners. So through region one of course uh will be our partner in support throughout this program. Um they also have um some tried and trueue um things that they have done as we would not be the first district to offer this program but we will le uh leverage their experience. our housing authority, workforce, um Salvation Army shelters, um just other employment um opportunities, right, where individuals may be able to work without a high school diploma where we can
016leverage um individuals there. Um we're also really excited about the um pool of potential students. Um Dr. Doyos mentioned that 14,000 number throughout the county area, but that is census data and we know that our census completion rates are also pretty low. So we actually anticipate that the number of potential candidates for this program to be much higher. Um our goal in this first season is to have 250 leads generated of individuals who could potentially start this program to generate about half as many applications to get those 50 students um enrolled into the program. Um criteria, it's already been mentioned 18 to 26 years old US um residents, meaning they have a proof of address. They just have to show us that they're living somewhere here that is not tied to um immigration status or
017anything else. Um enrolled in a Texas public school at some point. So they have to have some record of being enrolled in a Texas public school to be eligible. This is that flyer that Dr. mentioned, one of many to come. Again, collaborative, exciting. It's a good thing, right? It's something that we want people to feel really positive and good about taking advantage of. And that's our presentation. Is there any questions? >> I will open it up. >> I So on questions of cost, you know, curriculum zero, we already have the curriculum. What about Chromebooks, desks, all those kind of things? Uh yes, we have Chromebooks. We will uh probably also provide and it will as you can see we do have that 30,000 that we could potentially work with for any supplies or resources that
018we need. >> And this program generally follows the same school year. >> Yes. >> So okay. Um, if I can give you a picture, uh, think of the Lamar option students that are currently right now at, uh, in our district. It's just something similar like that, just that the these students will be 18 plus and they have the opportunity of coming only half a day. That's what works best for their schedule. >> Um, I'm very excited about this idea. I think this represents sort of this ethic and this mantra of being allin for our community. I'm thrilled to see us doing this. I've heard of similar programs in neighboring districts in the valley that have been operational for a few years. Some have slowed down and then had to start up again. But in those
019contexts, we're talking about thousands of individuals who have been reclaimed by the public school system to earn a high school diploma to put them on a path towards living wage, which we know does wonderful things for families and for ending intergenerational poverty. My clarification is on this slide as well. So the 50 students at 6215, that's the new basic aotment as established by House Bill uh House Bill 2 in the 2825 legislative session. Is it fair to assume that if any of these students have at risk indicators or are qualified for special education services or other uh multipliers in the school funding system that that number could actually be higher? >> That is correct. That is correct. This is the basic uh allotment. But if we have an emerging bilingual or special education student or
020they're part of the dyslexia program or whatever, we would get additional funding than the 6,200. >> Wonderful. Thank you. >> Um, also on this slide on faculty, it shows 65,000 for four teachers. Um, four, >> right? So, I'm just going to look at my notes here that I received. Um, this facility already houses two very different programs. We have IB and we have options there. Um, we only have a part-time librarian, a counselor, one counselor for both programs, an LVN, not an RN, no instructional assistant, one social worker that we share with three other campuses, and one police officer. The clerical staff consists of four staff, a principal secretary, bookkeeper, one attendance clerk, one clerk, register and one receptionist. My concern is that adding a third program to this facility is going to put a
021huge strain on our staff that's already there and stretch thin. So, I don't even think that you could employ the number of more people that we would need to hire with $30,000. Um, so I do have some serious concerns about adding whole new program at this location. So, >> is there another location? >> I mean, I'm just wondering like, and I don't know the logistics of it, but achieve those students are already on college campuses or, you know, go back and forth to STC. So, those kids are already exposed to older um young adults. Um, we have the ING building. I'm just wondering if it was if this is really the best fit. >> And I don't know, I'm sure Dr. Gutierrez will also um have something to say on this. We looked at where
022the space was right now. And um at Achieve Early College High School, we don't have four additional classrooms. Uh and it's not only for additional classrooms. We will also need a separate cafeteria, a separate uh set of restrooms, a separate um um location where wraparound services or counseling uh happen, right? And so I know that uh when Dr. Gutierrez's tasked us with with this with this uh idea, we looked we looked even at Navar Elementary, but the thing is that at Navaro Elementary, we don't have a principal. So that we will have to factor in a principal for that location and then we will have to move out all the staff there at Nevada for example. And then we also looked at a chief.