McAllen ISD Regular Board Meeting (May 27, 2025)

001Afternoon. A regular meeting of the board of trustees of the Macau Independent School District will be held Tuesday, May 27th, 2025, beginning at 5:30 p.m. in the Dr. Ricardo Chapa boardroom building of the Macauan Independent School District, 2000 North 23rd Street, Macauan, Texas 78501. 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 followed. 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. Item number three, pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the

002United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, for liberty and justice for all. This pledge of allegiance get faster every time that we do it. I pledge alleg comment. We have uh two speakers today. Before I call them up, I do want to play a quick video. 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 mcllenisd.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 Gracias. Okay, first we have Mr. Greg Phil.

003Greg Phil. No. Okay. Next we have Miss Beverly Aila. Miss Aila, we are going to give you two uninterrupted minutes. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Gutierz, President Reetta, and board members. I am speaking on behalf of Sylvia Tanguma, AFT president. Since the beginning of this school year, I've been in constant communication with administration regarding the unfair change made in August 2024 that requires elementary teachers to report at 7:30 a.m. to supervise students, essentially acting as babysitters. This shift happened after ESSER funds were cut and paraprofessionals were no longer available to cover early arrivals. We've been told that principles have been asked to be lenient with teachers who must drop off their own children at other campuses. But the reality is many principles are not being lenient at all. Some may have even gone so far

004as to require tutoring to start at 7:30 a.m. even though the instructional day doesn't begin until 7:50. This means teachers have to arrive by 7:25 a.m. which adds to their already demanding schedule. This is the first time in Mckllen ISD history that elementary teachers are being expected to fill this role and it's not equitable. Middle and high school teachers are not being asked to do this. Dr. Dr. Gutier has previously committed to reinstating the 7:45 start time and we even shared that information with members at the teacher job fair. But now that commitment is being walked back due to alleged resistance as per Miss Nino. Part of this resistance comes from teachers being told that if they choose the 7:45 a.m. time, they will be placed on early morning duty as an additional duty. If

005the concern is a five-minute window between teacher arrival and class start time, we can simply adjust the start of instruction to 7:55 as was done in previous years. Elementary teachers already work far beyond their required time and students go far beyond the statemandated instructional minutes. We are simply asking for fairness. Let teachers keep their 7:45 a.m. start time and stop treating them as babysitters. Respect their time and the critical work that they do. just like we do for the rest of the district. Thank you for your time. Thank you, Miss. Okay. Item number five, consent agenda items. I move to approve. Okay. Uh that'll be a motion by Miss Sophia Pñena, second by Trustee Lea Lopez to approve 5A through 5 L. Uh, all those in favor say I. I. I. All oppose. Motion passes.

0066. Right. Oh, seven. Sorry. Zero. There we go. All right. All right. Okay. Item number six, instructional services. 6A. Instructional services instructional leadership items uh 6A1 report regarding student health advisory council. Dr. Gutierrez. Yes. Uh Mr. President and board of trustees administration will report on the student health advisory council. Shaq Dr. Deoyos associate superintendent will share more information and this item is for information purposes only. Go ahead Dr. Deos. Yes. Thank you Dr. Gutierrez uh board president and rest of the board. We have a annual report by the school health advisory council as per EHAA legal award shall establish a local school advisory council known as SHAK to assist a district in ensuring that local community values are reflected in the district's health education instruction. We are a group of individuals that represent a segment

007of the community and the district and we're appointed by the district and the board to serve as an advisory board and discuss the school health program and its impact on student health and learning with um following the Texas education code. It is we are to have four annual meetings and these are the dates that we met and the agendas for each of the meetings and then throughout the year we work on efforts and today we're going to give you a report of those efforts and with me today I have representatives of the elementary, middle school and high school committees that will come and assist me with this presentation and also highlight the efforts that they're very proud of. So with us today we have Aruro Alvarado Puente. He is a physical education uh teacher at

008Fields Elementary, Mr. Ignasio Lan, principal at Deleon Middle School and uh Berta Maro, mathematics teacher at Row High School. I'm going to ask him to please be here. Come to the podium and we'll start with the elementary report. Mr. Good evening, Dr. Gutierrez. Board members, uh this is our highlights for the elementary shack report. We have uh high reg registration numbers in fifth grade elevate. Uh Tik Ben Savala composed a nutrition song to promote healthy habits. We have a high rating on our wellset policy rating and recommendations uh are to provide before school act physical activities at all elementary campuses and if there's any questions we can ask uh the representatives at the end of the presentation and we'll be more than happy to answer those questions. Now we have middle school. Good evening Dr.

009Ruter's board. So my name is Ignasan Jr. I'm the principal at Alonso Deon Middle School. And so the following are a few highlights of the work that we've done, all our efforts. On behalf of middle school campuses, I'd like to share uh the work that we've done through the school health advisory council to promote healthy habits amongst uh students and staff. Our teams uh have focused on the importance of wellness through eye-catching posters that highlight the importance of exercise, nutrition, hydration, and sleep. These visuals have been strategically posted throughout our campuses. And these visuals are reinforced by daily communications through campus announcements and social media posts that encourage students to make uh positive choices for their well-being. Okay. We've also expanded opportunities for physical uh activity during open gym activities before school and structured recess

010during lunch times and by promoting after school programs like the Boys and Girls Club uh of Macallen uh elevate programs. Okay. So these efforts not only support physical health but also boost mental well-being and academic focus. I want to thank you for your uh help in in supporting our mission for overall wellness across every single level. Good evening uh Dr. Gutierz and board. I'm a representative of uh the high school committee. As uh shown on the slide, we asked our high school students what are the most important things that they want to know about health and organization and they provided some of our feedback in a way of a survey. We asked them, could you please let us know what is it that we're looking for? And they're and they're like, we see it publicized

011in the media, but we want to know a little bit more about it in class or in school. So we are we made some posters um to publicize nutrition and efforts to eat better in the high school. Uh these posters are going to be placed in our cafeterias and around our school. These are just examples of some of them that we brought. They also want to know about meal preps. They're very excited about learning how nutrition is going to affect their wellbeing throughout the life. And any other questions you just let us know. Thank you. Co- posters. Thank you, Mr. Poente, Mr. Manise, and Mr. Amato. Now, we'll continue with our district subcommittees. And we have for physical education, health committee, Brian Mlenny. I ask that he come to the podium along with Norma Cabera,

012Marian Salua for mental health and prevention curriculum. Aora Figueroa for the wellness and health problem prevention along with Miss Elizabeth Gutierrez. Safe and supportive schools uh committee is represented by Chief Jose Silva and Mr. Adrien Gara and our school employee wellness committee by Mr. Andy Silva. Let's start with the report. Okay. Our highlights. Uh we have a great uh curriculum writing team comprised of six elementary physical education coaches, four middle school, and three high school. They're they're going to be meeting every June. They're going to be meeting June 9th, 10th, and the 11th uh to go through the health and physical education curriculum. Uh we have a strong relationship with the city of Macallen Parks and Records Department and also the city of Macallen Boys and Girls Club. Uh we exceed the required minutes per

013week in physical education at all levels and we have great participation in the Mallen ISD Boys and Girls Club Elevate Developmental League. Uh we have a elementary cross country meet every every year an elementary track meet every year and we started about four years ago sixth grade track meet at all of our middle schools. Uh we have great participation in the Macallen kids marathon and we have great participation in our afterchool programs which are safe and secure parks and wreck and boys and girls club. Thank you Mr. Mlan. Good evening. Um I'm Normma Cabernet, director for counseling. So under mental health uh some of the discussions and some of the highlights that we have here to share with you is continue to develop our comprehensive counseling curriculum and share with students the importance of mental

014health for awareness purposes via our guidance uh curriculum. Also we want to provide additional mental health staff development opportunities to staff, teachers, staff and also parents. increase parental engagement opportunities and participation and promote healthy living eating information via guidance counseling lessons and schoolwide initiatives. So that will uh that's the information under mental health. Thank you. Good afternoon Dr. Gutierrez and board members. My name is Aurora Ferroan and I'm the assistant director for the child nutrition and I am pleased to present the highlights from our wellness and health committee report. We are committed to the health and wellness of our students. In October 2024, we conducted a food sampling event at different campuses to gather our students feedback on menu items as part of our menu development process. This initiative aims to empower students to share

015their opinion but also their food preferences. We also display educational materials promoting local fruit and vegetables and their benefits on our serving lines. Our goal is to introduce our students to fresh fruit and vegetables at a young age by providing salad options and offering kitchen tours. Uh our administration team is collaborating for next year. We're collaborating with various vendors to organize next year food show for our students and and staff. We want to create an engaging, enjoyable event for our students and staff while empowering our students to participate. Thank you for your support to our wellness program. Thank you. Thank you. Good afternoon, Dr. Lutier Ford. My name is Elizabeth Gutierrez. I'm the director of health services for ISD. I'd like to share the highlights on behalf of our nurses in the district. Our school

016nurses led monthly health education initiatives beginning with the month of February being healthy heart month. Uh they did flyers, posters, bulletin boards. They even did a video on the scholastic screens on the campuses. In March our theme was healthy nutrition promoting balanced eating habits. In April stress awareness and in May we did vision health to protect the vision. These initiatives reflect our mission to support the whole child physically, mentally and emotionally. Thank you. Thank you. Good evening, Dr. Wier, board of trustees. So, on the safe and support of school committee report, we wanted to report some highlights. Uh I'm sure some of you all have seen some of our police department newsletters were issue 21 communicating trending uh monthly topics to include vaping uh dangers not just criminally but also to your health. High volume

017of therapy K9 utilization requests are being made. uh that's either for crisis, behavioral crisis or mental health uh crisis. All staff and substitutes have been trained in standard response protocol and silent panic alert technology. And of course, our recommendation is to allow for enhanced continuous education. Thank you. Uh good evening. Uh my name is Andre Silva. I'm director for employee benefits. And some of the highlights of the school employee wellness uh committee include uh promotion of lowcost and nocost wellness programs such as the zerocost flu shot clinics held at each campus as well as the zerocost tele medicine benefit uh distribution of wellness related content via emails, workplace postings, and inerson meetings. And that also included a video related to that tele medicine benefit. and for the following school year to continue the education efforts

018with a focus on increasing employee engagement in campus district or community sponsored wellness activities. Thank you. Thank you. This is our yearly report and if you have any questions, we're here to answer them. I do Oh, go ahead. Sure, Lizzy. Go, Lizzy. I can't see very well in here. Sorry. Um, thank you all for presenting. So, the ele the elementary representative said something about um having some playtime before the school day. And I was just curious cuz I know um some campuses in the past had that in their daily routine where parents who needed to drop off their kids earlier could drop them off and know that they would get some unstructured playtime, recess, whatever you want to call it in the morning. Do you know if we're still doing that? Um or does that

019not really happen? I know uh some of the coaches were saying about because the start time now we we're starting earlier so some of them had clubs like a walking club or clubs going on but now with the early start time I mean that's kind of like I mean that's interfering so hard to do yes okay I I think that was a really good practice and we can talk about this at the um end of the school year goes on, but just having um the opportunity or option for students to play before the school day. So, because it energizes them and then they sit down early and they're ready to, you know, focus and learn. So, I I appreciate, you know, those of you who were working on that. And and then I have another

020question. I know that this committee has made recommendations about recess. What is the recommendation that the this committee put together? like I think it was in 2022 or something. Hello Mr. McClenny. Hello. Hello. So, uh, elementaryaries are required to have at least 20 minutes of recess. U in the past, a couple of campuses had a little flexibility of having recess after lunch. Uh, the recommendation in the past was also to have recess before lunch. Uh but that just comes down to master scheduling and so forth. Middle school, all six of our middle schools have gone to a recess. Uh I think all six of our middle schools do have some type of recess in the morning when the kids are dropped off. Uh so but as far as elementary, it's required. 20 minutes of recess

021can be used as punishment. uh also and the best practice is to have the recess before lunch, but sometimes that that's not realistic, especially with big campuses, right? Thank you. And and um personally, I think well, I think all of us are probably proponents of recess and having that unstructured time. So, I'm glad that our committee made a requirement and I'm wondering maybe to the board or admin that we can discuss actually creating policy um in as local policy. I know some districts have since it's already a requirement that we just kind of spell it out 20 minutes daily unstructured play time. It's something to consider um in the future. And it it is in policy. It's in regulation actually. So, uh, it's in really it's in the wellness regulation. Yes, ma'am. Okay. Thank you.

022I I was looking at that. I couldn't find it, but I'll but I'll look again. Thank you. Okay. Thank you, director. I have one question for you. Is 20 minutes sufficient for elementary kids for recess? Well, for recess, uh, yes, that that's sufficient. Uh, now, like in middle school, it's probably around 10 to 15 minutes, uh, because of the lunch periods. uh but elementary that is sufficient. We do exceed the amount of minutes required. Some campuses have 45 minute PE periods plus a 20-minut recess. Uh we're going to encourage the the campuses that have a 30 minute uh physical education period to maybe extend that if possible. Uh because all the research out there says the kids need to have physical activity as much as possible. Unstructured recess is great. There's a lot of research

023on that where kids and and I saw it as a practitioner as a middle school principal. We started recess a long time ago during lunch and it was great for a kid like me when I was smaller. Uh I needed to get outside. I The kids are ready to go outside. They're ready to play. They're ready to form their team. Some kids just want to walk. Some kids just want to chitchat outside. Uh but just being outside, being outside in the sun is good for kids. So the 20 minutes uh I think that was a good sweet spot for everyone within the master schedules of our of our elementaryaries. Plus we exceed the minutes required. It's you only required 135 minutes. Our low campuses on the minutes get 150 a week and some get uh

024close to 60 minutes every day. Uh so it's close to three 350 minutes a week, 300 minutes a week of uh physical education plus recess. I think you put proponent of recess and unstructured time and I think 20 minutes seems small to me. I'm not an educator, but I defer to you all. But I I would be interested in learning more about um if there's studies out there showing if we increase that from 20 minutes to 30 minutes to 40 minutes, whatever it is, and what that does to academics, especially for elementary school students. Um we all know, you know, kids need to move around in order to be able to learn. Um and I think SB25, which is on the calendar, was supposed to be on the calendar today, would mandate minimum 30 minutes

025a day, right? Yeah. 30 minutes of physical education and then you you can I think some campuses have multiple recesses throughout the day. Correct? Yes. And I think Miss Nino can verify that some do have multiple recesses multiple times a day. So, uh but yes, you're correct. Uh 30 minutes a day of physical education is required and uh well, it's 135 minutes a week. May I piggyback off of what you were saying, Trusty Hadad? Um, I know that Austin and there's some other districts that have passed a requirement of 30 minute unstructured recess that like you said, Mr. McClenny, is not allowed to be um negotiated with um poor behavior or grades or assignments or whatever. But I also know there's a pilot study in Worth ISD happening now where there are throughout the day

026there's four different short 15minute increments and so far I know it's still going on but what they found was um very positive um associations with students um performance and stuff but I think this is a really great conversation and thank you Mr. Money for for supporting some unstructured play for students. Yes, ma'am. Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Anyone else? I just had a comment on the to the general members of the SHA committee. Thank you for everything you do. I think it's absolutely vital what you're doing and I look forward to working with you all and to see how this board can support those efforts, especially when it comes to nutrition and education about nutrition. You know, there's a lot of It's not our fault, but we're getting fed a lot of, I say, ultrarocessed

027food, which is bad, but we need to be able to learn about that and teach our children how to figure out what what's good food and what's bad food. So, I applaud everything you're doing. These posters are fantastic, and I look forward to working with you all. Thank you. I also go ahead. I just wanted to highlight that we also have parents that are part of the track here. If they're parents, can they stand up? We just want to be able to Well, I know we have Miss uh Ree here. Um and Mr. Karion was also one of our shacks. Oh, yeah. I I just wanted to uh reiterate my appreciation for having had the opportunity to serve on the shack this year. Um it was a eye- openening experience as somebody who um you

028know thinks primarily about um instructional excellence um to come to those meetings and sort of hear all of the different ways that the staff and the community is thinking about the education of the whole child. I think we got a small glimpse of that from these various reports. I would encourage our fellow board members to attend one or more of those next year um just to get a deeper sense of the forethought um and intentionality with which our staff is considering all of the various needs of our students. And also thank you to parents and other community members um who participated in the shack deliberations over the course of the past year. Thank you. Okay. Uh thank you Mr. CL and thank you to everyone in the chat committees and the drawings were great. The

029paintings were great. I'd say maybe we challenge the board of trustees versus everyone else and see who comes out better. No. Uh okay. Item six that was for information purposes 62 report regarding TEA 2023 A throughF accountability ratings and 2024 projections. Dr. Guth. Yes, Mr. President, board of trustees. Um, on April 24th, 2025, the Texas Education Agency released the 2023 A throughF accountability ratings. Though these ratings reflect performance from the 22 23 school year, TA is now able to publicly release them for the first time and make them available to Texas schools. Uh, the 2024 accountability projections will also be presented. Uh, Miss Christian Kintania will share more information. This item is for information purposes only. I'd like to uh just give a little brief history as to what's going on with the accountability system

030before Miss Kintania makes her presentation. Uh, the 2223 scores u were not released immediately at that time because it was under litigation. uh several school districts from throughout the state were suing TEA for uh the accountability system because uh TA did not give us the guidelines until very late in the year and some school districts felt that that was unfair to uh to be given the guidelines late in the year and the kids were in fact the kids were almost about to be testing before we found out what those the criteria was going to be. So, there was a lawsuit. The the court held up the scores and the grades for each uh for the campuses and the district throughout the state. Uh they went into litigation up until the April the 24th last month

031when the courts decided that uh to release the the the grades and the scores uh for the school districts and the campuses based on the 2223 school year. Now, the 2023 2024 scores, they're still under litigation and but we have projections. Uh Miss Kintania and her group and her staff, they do a good job in uh calculating the the scores for each campus in the district. They did the same for 22 23. Even even when it was under litigation, they're almost like spot-on for each campus as far as the scores and the district. they their data is just as similar. When they came out, they were identical. So, we feel that the 24 preliminary scores are also identical based on the data that they ran. And so, we are going to make a comparison with

032with the 23 that have been officially released. The 24 is under litigation, but we are going to show those scores and make a uh make a comparison between the 23 24. We we feel very comfortable that those projections that we have for 24 are identical once the state releases those scores. We anticipate that may happen sometime during the summer. Uh so that they will uh allow us to uh or release the 24 uh scores. Now uh for 25 there is no pending litigation. So we are already receiving our scores for the 2025. Believe it or not, even though the kids just tested about a month ago or two months ago, we've already started receiving scores. So far, uh we gotten the high school scores and we have received some of the middle school scores. We're

033very pleased that uh we're seeing a lot of progress now in the 2025, better than 24 and better than 23. So, we're very happy as far as what we're seeing with the high schools so far and the middle schools. Hopefully tomorrow, Wednesday or day after that, Thursday, we may get uh all the elementary scores and the remainder of the middle school scores so that we can start looking at our at our scores at each campus and districtwide. So, uh just like when we thought we had it all together, uh there is House Bill 4 out there that may change the whole system all over again. Um from we we're going to go from Star 1.0 0 to star 2.0. The 23 and 24 and 25 scores are start 2.0, but House Bill 4 may change

034the accountability system all over again. And so we may be testing uh three times a year, uh beginning a year, middle of year, and end of the year if it passes. And we are going to test uh less subjects but more often. It's pretty much what they're looking at. So, uh, a lot of changes in the accountability system and, uh, since, uh, the last five years, uh, there's been a lot of changes and changing the test, changing the rubric on how to score the test and again, we we may see that again for this coming fall. So, we will continue to adjust uh continue to review our curriculum uh continue to make sure that we monitor the instructional time so that uh we can continue preparing our kids for uh for these assessments. But, uh

035we're expecting changes once again on the on the state assessments based on House Bill 4, but we'll keep you posted. We'll keep everyone informed. And of course when every time there's a changes to the test like we anticipate there will be more uh another new test coming up we have to revise the curriculum we have to provide more uh professional development and then readjust our calendars based on those new uh testing dates that we're going to get which is going to be now more often three times a year versus only one time a year. So, it's going to be a gamecher once again and uh we we'll continue to be on top of that and and making sure that uh we align our curriculum, we uh have our resources that we need and we provide

036the trainings that our teachers need and uh be able to um continue preparing our kids for the the assessments that they're going to bring on to us. But for now, we're going to cover the 23 in comparison to the 24. But again, just keep in mind this may be old data now because things are changing in this new legislative session that we have with new testing coming up for possibly this coming fall. Uh we're going to see new changes to the testing. But uh I just wanted to say that to the to the audience and to the board as to what's happening with the accountability system. But Miss Kenta, go ahead. Yes, sir. Thank you. Hello, I'm Christian Kintania. I am the director for accountability. So um as Dr. Butier has mentioned, I will be

037going over the 2023 A throughF accountability ratings. Um give you a little um explanation as to our journey and the accountability system change as well as the test redesign. And um as Dr. Guutier has mentioned, uh this is a two-year delay. So it is it it became public to not only our our school systems but also to the parents and the community. So as you can see here, I would like to start with what is the accountability system? This is the framework for the accountability world um in here in Texas. And so it is a statewide rating system established by the education agency TEA uh that allows them to evaluate the academic performance of Texas public schools and assign a letter grade. And so anytime you see a letter grade, these are the labels or

038descriptors of each letter grade. An A signifies exemplary performance. A B is recognized. A C is acceptable. A D is needs improvement and an F is unacceptable. And so campuses are essentially rated as well as a district in on three domains. Domain one which is your academic achievement. However, domain two is composed of two domains. Part A which is your academic growth and domain 2B it is your relative performance is how you perform relative to the campuses that compare to your economically disadvantaged per uh percentages. And then your domain three is your closing the gaps. This domain is your federal targets. So 70% of the campuses and the district score comes from either do the better of domain one or domain 2 or the best of domain one, 2A or 2B and then 30% comes

039from closing the gaps. So I've provided for you the breakdown for each of the elementary and middle school uh the high school with CCMR credit as well as the alternative um education campus which is Lamar options. Now as far as the state accountability system and the change over time as you see here we have indicated um we have a chart a bar chart where we have the total number of A-rated campuses B C and D over 2022 2023 2024 it should be noted that in 2022 we had the star 1.0 assessment and I will elaborate a little more in in the following slides and then there was a change uh like Dr. Dr. Gutierrez mentioned from 22 to 23 and this is where the accountability manual was released about a month um the month that

040the students were already assessing. So the rules to the test were administered were released while the students were assessing taking their their start test and then we have um the star 2.0 assessment with new item types which I will detail in a bit and then 2024 which was last year spring we took the star 2.0 In 2022, as you can see from left to right, our district rating in 2022 was an A, a 95. We had 19 campuses with an A and 10 campuses with a B. So, a total of 29 schools here in Macallen. After the change in the accountability system and the redesign of the test, we had 10 uh campuses with all with A's, 14 with B's, four with C's, and one D. and we had a rating of an 87 as

041a as a district. Now in 2024 our projections which is they have not released been released but like Dr. Gutier has mentioned we have calculated and we're pretty accurate and we're pretty confident with our results. We had more A school- rated campuses. We have 12 more B-rated campuses, 15 one C campus and one one D campus, giving us an increase from an 87 to a projected 89 for 2024. We should know these scores coming coming uh this summer or before the release of 2025. Also, the post-secary distinction, it should be noted that we have earned that distinction as a district from 22, 23, and 24. And that distinction is is a great honor because it is indicative of the high performance of our students that not only are students passing at the approaches level which

042is the minimum level or the meets they're passing at the meets and masters level. So we have about 55% of our campuses allowing us to earn that post-secary distinction here in Macallen ISD. So great work here. Now the changes in the accountability system. So 22 ratings and 2020 23 ratings used different methodologies particularly um this is where the lawsuit ensued because they were are the TA system was comparing apples to oranges according to the lawsuit and in this comparison chart you can see that in 2022 the accountability particularly in 2A which is your academic growth students are measured in reading and mathematics growth so meaning success uh success excessively meaning that a third grade reading test is compared to a fourth grade reading test prior to the current. The same thing for mathematics. So when

043students uh take their assessment and they earn they grow from one performance level to the next in the past they would earn a full point even if they did not pass. if they they did not meet. For example, from left to right, as you can see on my yaxis, you have your did not meets and then on top you have your your did not meets. So when they met, when you pinpoint those those coordinate planes, you'll see that the students will still earn a point. Meaning that even though they did not pass, they grew significantly to earn one point. Conversely, in the 2023 accountability system, which we're utilizing and implementing now, now students who did not pass zero points, even though they might have grown significantly within that skill score, that range, the state changed

044the methodology, and they introduced new language such as high did not meets, low approaches, and high approaches. So even if a student in 2022 would stay at the approaches level, meaning they passed at the minimum level, they would earn a full point. But in 2023 accountability system, if the students earned a low did not meets and they earned a low did not meets prior year and then current year, they got half a point, half a credit. So it really did affect the performance and the methodology. And again, this was introduced to to the districts and and school systems while the students were assessing or taking the test already. If I may add, this slide and the next one, I don't think it's in our packets because I asked Miss Gintania to explain just the the

045rubric. It was a late uh request that I made to her this today. But I just wanted the the board and everyone to understand just that how the rubric changed on us and and it made it more difficult from start 1.0 to start 2.0. So you won't see this slide in the next one, but it's just an explanation on the rubric. Yes, sir. Thank you. And the next one is your test redesign. So not only did the accountability system and the methodology of of rating and grading our students in STAR 1.0, um I'd like to draw your attention. I'll I'll do the comparison. It was a paperbased assessment and 100% of it, for example, in reading it was a comprehension multiple choice. However, in STAR 2.0, which was a 2023 and beyond assessment, it became

046an online assessment and that's where we had multiple choice about 75% of the test and 25% of the of the test was new item types meaning that they had which I'll I'll explain a little um in depth in a bit. So then in star two star 1.0 know we also had a reading comprehension only assessment 2017 student expectations that means the the teaks of the from 2017 and we had fourth and seventh grade take the writing test whereas in 2023 in the STAR 2.0 No, we had a reading change to a reading and writing a reading language arts assessment. Um, so in one test we had new readiness and supporting designations. We had crosscurricular content connections in reading language arts. That means now we had moreformational passages from social studies from that grade level. Whatever

047the students learned in in social studies third grade was reflected in the reading test as well. Then the new item types as you can see my list is extensive but the main one is the extended constructed response the ECR. So that writing essay it was text it became text dependent. So not only did they have do our stu students in 2023 and currently have to read a selection but understand it and then the prompt is text it depends on that text the comprehension and they have to site their evidence. Also um short constructed responses were introduced. That means they they respond in open-ended in reading, language arts, science and social studies. We have revise and editing questions, drag and drops, fill in the blanks, and they also have drop- down items. So the test completely

048changed from one year to the next. And then this one is one of the biggest factors here. Prior instar 1.0, know we had human scored essays. So human uh the rated all the written responses whereas in 2023 star 2.0 automated scoring engines were used and as you can see that prompted the lawsuit because we had a high volume of zeros throughout the state of Texas. So that is um the major reform of your of the um assessment. And although all those changes were brought and uh things the methodology changed in the accountability system and the new item types were introduced, I do want to celebrate that we our 2023 accountability ratings in comparison to our region one schools. We are still in the top four. As you can see, we only had two districts in

049our region one with A's and that is South Texas ISD and United ISD in Larredo. They earned an A. And we are still u Mallen ISD. We earned an 87B and we earned our postsecary distinction. So um as you can see a lot of us in um Brownsville, we have Brownsville, Los Fresnos, Macallen, Raymondville and Web CISD with 87Bs and uh we are still um working hard and and doing well. Now these are the individual scores as you mentioned as I mentioned earlier by domain. So, Mallen ISD in 2023 earned an 84 in domain 1, 75 C in domain 2A. Your growth, even though the methodology changed, as you can see, we're pretty much in the high B's, but that 2A did affect our our our overall district performance. And then we have 20 um

050and 2B, the relative performance, where they compare us to our our schools with the same population or economically disadvantaged percentage, and then closing the gap. So, we earned an 87B in 2023. I do want to celebrate these are the high schools. They did ex extremely well. If I want to draw your attention to the far right, you'll see there that Mac High and Memorial, they have high B's and the rest of our high schools row achieve and Lamar options with A's in 2023. Exceptionally well. Now, the middle schools, again, I'd like to draw your attention to the far right. We do have three solid A's and three solid B's as well. So great work in 2023 for the middle schools and then our elementarymentaries. A lot of hard work there. But as you can see,

051we do have some yellows in 2A. The methodology changed in the growth system, especially affecting our elementarymentaries. But overall, we do have, as I mentioned, um four A's and we have a lot of B's in in elementary, three C's and that year we did earn a D which we quickly turned around as you'll see in 2024. Now, these are the 2024 rating projections. And in the rating projections, um, nothing has been released other than our calculations here in our district. So, we we did improve in domain one with an 86. We went up two points. Our domain 2A continues to be an area of focus and growth um, across the board. And then domain 2B, our relative performance, we improved from an 88 to an 89. Domain 3, we went from an 86 to an

05288. and an overall rating projection of an 89 for 2024, improving from an 87 to an 89. So although the test was redesigned and the methodology changed, our our district continued to farewell and do very well in 2024. And again, our high schools are projected to have A's um and we do have 189B. So we're almost right there with all our high schools being A's for 2024. Our middle schools continue to do very well. Solid solid A's and improved B's we want to mention. And lastly, our elementary projections for 2024. Again, we have more A's. We have five A's, a lot more B's, only one C, and we continue to work with a 69D. Um, it's a different school, a different campus. Nonetheless, still a lot of work and support there for this school year.

053That concludes my report to the board. Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'd like to make a motion to reorganize the agenda and bring forth item 6C6, discussion and possible action regarding Macau High School Quarterback Club donation for the remodeling of the varsity football locker room. Second. I have a motion to bring forth item 66 by trustee deleg Lopez Lopez and a second by trustee pñena deleg. No, I'm just kidding. Uh all those in favor sign say I. I. All oppose. Okay, motion passes. We have a pretty lengthy agenda so unless y'all wanted to hang out with us. All right. So 6C6 discussion and possible action regarding Macauan High School Quarterback Club donation for the remodeling of the varsity football locker room. Dr. Gita, the Mallen High School Quarterback Club will donate 52,400 to remodel the Mallen

054High varsity football locker room to improve the campus for our athletes. Mr. Byron Mlenny, director of athletics, is available to answer questions. administration is recommending action on this item. But I think we also have Miss Freedelland, our principal from Makai, and Coach Shelby if they want to come to the podium and say any give us some more information on this. Members of the community, the quarterback club have any questions? We have members of the community here with the quarterback club. So, if you all want to stand. Does anybody want to say anything to us? Come to the podium. Good evening. My name is Jennifer Moley and I represent the quarterback club. So, over time, the space has experienced noticeable wear and no longer meets the functional and safety needs of our student athletes. The remodel

055would significantly improve comfort, hygiene, and overall usability, creating a better environment for everyone who uses the facility. Specifically speaking to health and hygiene issues, MCH High has had to disinfect the locker room several times due to staff infection spreading because of the lack of space the current locker room offers the athletes. The quarterback club is prepared to cover all the costs associated with this remodel. We would like to get started as soon as possible to make sure it's ready for the upcoming football season. This is a really important project to a lot of us and we'd like to see it started as soon as possible. I move to approve. I second. I have a motion by trustee and a second by trustee Pñena. All those in favor? I. All opposed? Motion passes 70. Thank you

056all and Thank you to the quarterback club. Good job, coach. Thank you. Thank y'all very much. Can I just say also um as a parent of a booster club as well um athletics and UIL, I know um how much work our facilities need. Um and so I'm so grateful for the fundraising and the efforts that are done um by our families and our community and local businesses as well. Um but this is definitely on on us like we should provide these facilities for our students and I know it's long overdue. Um, so I'm grateful for the work that y'all have done um because our students and our staff deserve it. So, thank you everybody. I I just want to add that I spoke to a parent part of your quarter quarterback club this week, this

057past week and uh again reiterate what Trusty Dearal Lopez said. We're very very proud of the work that you've done and all the fundraising efforts. It's going to make a big difference and I know we're going to have a great year. So, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. [Applause] 683. All right. Uh item 6 A3 report regarding intention to apply for federal grants. Dr. Gutierrez, for any federal grants, the districts are required to inform the board of trustees of any intention to apply. Dr. The OOS associate superintendent for instructional services will share more information and this item is for information purposes only. Thank you Dr. Gutierrez. I was just waiting for the the slide yeah slide to come up. Um I can go ahead and start. So, yearly

058districts submit grant applications for the following programs and we have the grant managers here tonight if there are any questions after we go through the grants uh list. Um, I'll I'll name them uh and then I'll name the grant managers and then if you need to ask any questions or clarifying um details um they're here to answer any questions. And just as an information item, these are uh annual grants that that we apply is is not uh they're not new. They're just uh annually we have to submit the uh the grant applications uh for these federal grants that uh every district receives and this is that's why it's an information item but it does require uh just an information to the board that uh the this annual grants is require an application every year. That

059is correct Dr. Gutierrez and we do have three additional grants aside of those yearly grants that we submit. So, I'll start with the yearly grants that we submit and base um as a uh CB local policy. We have to uh bring it to the board and do a public notice of these federal grants. And so, I'll start with the first one, title one part A, improving basic programs, our uh grant manager, Dr. Cynthia Olivarees. Then we go on to title two part A, supporting effective instruction. uh title four part a student support and academic enrichment with also Dr. Olivarees and then um the title one part C education of migr migratory children we continue on with uh the Perkins v strengthening CTE for the 21st century and that will be covered by Mr. Leo Science,

060the grant manager for that grant. Moving on to special education consolidated grant IDEAP formula by Mrs. Mariela Lisando uh and also special education consolidated grant IDAB preschool. Then we have Miss Lisa Lada uh grant manager for special education consolidated grant IDEA B discretionary deaf and I think we have one more before we go on to the others. Yes, the bilingual ones um those are by the grant manager uh is Rosio Nava, our bilingual director. Title three part A and then title three part A immigrant. Those will be submitted like we do like Dr. Gutierrez mentioned yearly. And then in addition to all these yearly grant applications, we are also going to be submitting one for the fiscal year 25 for cops school violence prevention program and it will be managed by Miss Laura Williams and

061the other one for cops hiring program also by Miss Laura Williams. And then we'll end our list with um the office of violence against women fiscal year 2025 grants to prevent and respond to domestic violence and that will be submitted and managed if we get awarded by Mr. Adrien Garca. So at this time if you have any questions or you need more uh clarity on any of these grants please feel free to ask us and we're here to answer any questions. Are these grants I mean I I see a lot of them go through 2026. Are they are we expecting um cuts at the federal level that would undermine these grants amounts that we're seeking? Well, right now they're still they're open and we are going to be submitting. So, we're expecting to receive the

062award. Hopefully, we don't get cuts, but as as of right now, they're open. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Item 6A4, discussion and possible action to request that administration provide the board with various scheduling scenarios and the accompanying budgetary implications for the board's consideration at future budget workshops for the 202526 budget which may allow the district to implement shorter school days across elementary, middle, and high schools. Dr. Gutierrez. Yes. U elementary and secondary committees were formed to receive feedback regarding the start and end time for both teachers and students for the 2526 school year. Miss Janette Nino, associate superintendent as well as uh Dr. Deoyos, associate superintendent for instructional services will continue uh sharing the presentation for the elementary uh campuses, the middle school campuses as well as the high schools. So this discussion, this item

063is for discussion and possible action and let me go ahead and start with Miss Nino Elementary and then we'll turn it over to Miss Dr. Deos for the secondary part. Go ahead Miss Nino. Thank you sir. Good evening everyone. Thank you for this opportunity to share um feedback as Dr. Dutier mentioned from um our elementary schools committee. Um first of all I'd like to thank those that have taken time to be part of these committees. Um there's several individuals from our district network here and um they some are present in our audience here today. So thank you for taking time in addition to our campus staff which we had representation from our principles um at the administration of each of of our campuses as well as teachers. So, we did want to ensure with all

064the programs and services that we offer throughout our district that we have representation uh demographically as well as services across our entire district um from both teachers, principles and our supporting um district network and also to our parents who made time from their schedules at work to also join us um to be part of these committees in hearing and providing their feedback as well. So, um just you know framing these conversations for purpose and goal. Um the Hawaii is always important for individuals to understand uh when we have conversations um with with individuals from all committees. And so we're in that planning for next school year and in that just ensuring that our district leadership um collaborates and supporting our board of trustees to just make sure that they have all the information in making

065those informed decisions for approving this upcoming budget in June 2025 as well as um just ensuring that stakeholders know that they're being heard that their feedback is important and specifically this committee uh met around start and end times for uh for the teacher workday. So information to just again provide for background for this committee was why are minutes important for us to consider um in being part of this committee. And so information shared with them was how the Texas Education Agency does set required minutes for school districts in Texas. Uh particularly a minimum of 75,600 operational minutes and a breakdown of what that defines into half-day funding versus full day funding um because that again impacts us whether we go to an early release schedule or to a full day schedule. And so also um

066earning approved accreditations and recognitions through some programs requires minutes. So we needed to consider those whether it's through special education, our bilingual department, dual language. Um and also just other compliance guidelines that we don't want to overlook when we're serving and offering choices to our families at Macallen ISD. Also in addition to that we wanted to look at which programs to consider um impacting our students in their schedules. So again dual language program does have required uh minutes in their time not just by the program overview but as well as by subject. Um again our special education students each of our special education students and families have an individualized educational program that we follow and that is um based on students needs. Um, our dyslexia students also receive services which require 45 minutes per day

067and just the frequency of how um often they receive those services can range between 3 to 5 days a week. Also, our prek uh funding requires um for enrolled four-year-olds to attend a full day. So, just giving them some background information so that they can um develop some options for us to look at as we move forward with planning for the next school year. In addition, Mallalen ISD now has a board approved additional day school year calendar. And so where you might see other school districts with 173 days or a little bit less, in order to receive this additional funding from the state as an ad district, we do need to have a minimum of 180 school days currently for that extra funding to be generated by the district. Also providing them just what the

068calendar looks like for next year is important for them to have um just as a again some information as they um develop their conversations around that day and currently providing them what the elementary instructional program overview looks like. So this is um from preK on the left side of that illustration shows how many minutes students receive in preK um from reading language arts to math, science, social studies and then targeted small groupoup intervention time that's offered every day. And on the right hand side we see our kindergartener students up through fifth grade and what their minutes look like and aligning those experiences for students as we move forward in each of those content areas. as well. The areas in yellow that retach and enrich, we maximize that time because we don't want any students to

069miss a strong tier one instruction first teach from their classroom teacher. So if I do have a special service as a student, um for example, our students with dyslexia, um students with special services, they can then utilize that 45minute retach and enrich to have those services so that they don't miss out from their first teach with their classroom teacher. So, um the discussion groups were set up just to help facilitate time as well as making sure that we covered um questions that we wanted to u get feedback on. So, we had topics such as employee morale, um topics such as student achievement, instructional impacts and equity for all students, family considerations and extracurricular activities. Um the feedback regarding a teacher start time um you know 7:30 versus 7:45. what are the impacts and what is

070their feedback on that as well and then a whole group opportunity where we could develop some scheduling options to bring uh to our school board as well as to Dr. Gutieras for consideration. They spent about 20 minutes at each of these um four topic tables and then we came together again for topic five for that scheduling option section and um in giving them some additional information. These were um some some options that were given to them just so that they could have a frame of reference. So option one is currently the school year that uh the time we've adopted this school year um including the teacher work day and the student instructional day which we currently have at 7:50 to 3:30. on the right hand side, you'll see what that instructional day and teacher workday

071looks like um as it as it relates to an accountability rating since that's now been released officially through TEA for the 20123 ratings. Um then there was another option. You know what if we just start um as we've we've uh recommended for next year for 7:45 ending that at 3:45 with 30 minute lunch. That is comparable to a neighboring school district who has a accountability rating of a B as well at an 82. Option three, having a teacher workday start at 8 o'clock and going to four o'clock with 30 minute lunch, which is also comparable to a surrounding school district that has a B rating at an 86. And then a fourth option of a teacher workday um starting at 7:45. We were um we had two options there that were provided to the committee

072first um and stay having the student instructional day start at 8. again comparable to two other districts in region one with as well as um you know comparable ratings as B's um an 87 for Brownsville and 89 for Sherry Land. So that is where the conversation started for the committees to look at um based on some information and data that was given to to me to help lead this conversation. And after the they got to talking and they got to explore these four options and that information um each committee there were four committees that rotated through these areas. They struck out all four options. So they said how about we come and propose some new options for you, Miss Nino. and we said absolutely that is what our time is here together and that's actually

073the task at hand is give us some of your feedback from a uh campus administrator's perspective a teachers perspective and a parents perspective so um for transparency I kept their slides as I typed them that day with the help of Miss Hosa and they were in um they were grouped by colors just so we could help track their time as well as their participation and what they were giving feedback on so all of those that were um participating as as far as with the red color, this was their proposal. Um making having the teacher work day start at 7:30, end at 4. And having that 40 minute lunch is is really valuable to them because it gives them a little bit of time. With our elementary students, I do have to walk my students to

074the cafeteria, make sure they get there, and then that still leaves me at least, you know, 30 30 minutes to eat my lunch. Um and then also keeping the instructional date to 7:50 to 3:30. So that was um the red color groups um proposal and again not considering any of the other four that were given to them to start looking at based on information received. Then as we moved to the yellow color group again we have teacher administrators and parents representative in each of these groups. They also proposed a whole other option different from the four we gave them as well as from group the the red group and they said okay well let's do two two um proposals for the teacher workday both starting at 7:30 and going to 3:30 for with a 30

075minute lunch or ending at 3:40 to give 40-minute lunch and having the instructional day start at 7:45 and ending earlier at three. So that was um the yellow colored group's recommendation. Uh moving on to that third group in the green uh group color area, they also said, you know, we we're not considering any of those four options that were proposed from from the original slide, but we'd like to propose a teacher workday starting at 7:30, ending at 3:30 with a 30 minute lunch and the student instructional day to be from 7:45 to 3:00 p.m. And then our last group, the blue collar group, also said, you know, um we we want to strike out those four options you brought to us, Miss Nino. However, we would like to propose a teacher workday of 7:30 to

0763:45 with a 40-minute lunch. Um they said if you actually can extend that 7:30 to 4, that actually gives us 15 more minutes of planning at the end of the day. Um and then the student instructional day, 7:45 to 3. So overall this next slide here just summarizes what each of those groups proposed. Um that is from again representation of parents uh campus principles and teachers in each of those committees. And again I kept their colors aligned so that again for transparency they knew that we were bringing what they proposed in those recommendations and not the original ones from the ones I presented to them at the start. and also making sure that what we're presenting to you today on their recommendations aligns with the minutes that we talked about at the start of the

077slide um with TA aligned minutes and then also showing them um at the end what does that give us in time um for example this year we had two extreme weather events and um we did not have to make up that time thankfully our our staff got to stay home and take care of what we had to do at home but neighboring districts had to make up that time. So, the closer you stay to that 75,600 minutes, you just want to wait to see how many available days do we have, which is the last column in yellow to say, okay, we might span from 3 days to 12 days. And they even said they asked Miss Dino, what what do you think um is that we should go with safely on having available class days?

078And we say, well, in a traditional calendar, you have two, you know, two weather days, one fall, one spring, but it's completely up to you. So they didn't want to go lower than three on the can on having available days, but also the 7:50 to 3 3:30 gives us a lot of extra days too. So again, the recommendations provided by the committee for um adjusted students instructional time and end times does align. We wanted to make sure that what we brought to you um here this evening does align with the minutes that's required by the state. and just a um a lot of their feedback. I wanted them to say, "Okay, what has what has um driven you to giving us these options. I took um again just minutes and notes on their considerations for

079us here this evening and they said do not adjust the current instructional day um particularly due to scheduling of services via meetings for our students in special ed." they've just completed those year that this year for next year to get our students in special ed services um ready to go for the first day of school and we would definitely have to come back and readjust not just at an an amended ARD meeting but it would have to be an annual ARD meeting which means that anyone that services our special ed student would have to participate and this would have to be done before the first day of school. Um, another question they asked is if budgetary considerations is what's being discussed here for us tonight, how is this being costeffective if changing the instructional minutes

080again needs to bring in staff to reconvene all these arts? Um, how will you how will they how will the staff be compensated monetarily for this time during the summer? And is there already a budget in place for that to be considered? And then for any change again to the current instructional day, all ARDs would need to be scheduled again before the first day of school. Also to please keep the 45 minutes in the instructional program day for the retach and enrich that is embedded in the school day. So um if you're looking at at supporting students in an intervention above and beyond um that first instructional time um students are present in the daytime to capture them after school, capture them on a Saturday, etc. uh before school is not something you can always

081count on. But R& which is called retach and enrich in that calendar time of the day helps us know that we can work with our students either to make sure that they get additional support or we can take them to the next level if they're ready for um additional depth and complexity in those objectives. Also, transportation was discussed in our committee. So the needs for elementary students are significantly different compared to those in secondary schools. And um they talked about the current bus schedule accommodating routes where we only have elementary age students riding at uh the buses at one time. You don't have a mix of elementary and secondary age students all at the same time. Um, also there's transportation provided to students to the Boys and Girls Club and if that's not offered at

082their campus then that would be a challenge. There's also increased bus ridership for students in elementary on the afterchool routes more than in the morning. So more students do depend on the buses after school to get home or to get to that after school care and transportation incentive. There is one for our MISD employees which include our teachers who have their own children enrolled at a school within the same feeder pathway. So, um I know in speaking with our transportation department, they do help ensure that our staff students, if they're enrolled in that feeder pathway, they make it to the campus where mom or dad or the guardian works. And adjusting the instructional day to end earlier may provide students also with an opportunity to join after school clubs and activities. So they had a

083little bit of both in all of their feedback and then just setting up something for next steps if needed. Um you know presenting their options out. Um we have ran surveys in the last few uh weeks particularly one um for elementary teachers to say what is your feedback on the 7:30 versus 7:45 time. So I'll show that here shortly. And um the audience here included all of our elementary teachers, pre-K through fifth grade, um including our music teachers, our physical education and dyslexia. We also included our instructional coaches and interventionists. So that survey was open Monday, May 19th through the 23rd. And um again, that was the the design and purpose of that survey. What uh what what is your preference? um they were given four options on the survey um with a 7:30 to

0847:45 since again we get feedback saying there's more showing or saying they want uh this start time versus another. So we just wanted to offer that opportunity to staff to give their feedback and show data. So this is just a picture of that elementary teachers feedback form survey. They had a selection of again a 7:30 versus a 7:45 start time with either a 30 minute or 40 minute lunch. And these were the results at the end of Friday. Um we had 48.7% of those um that that responded to the survey saying um 7:30 start time with a 40m minute lunch compared to the second one that um actually there was two tied for the next one. The 7:45 with a 30 minute lunch, a 7:45 with a 40minut lunch. and the least um one voted

085for so to say in giving their feedback was the 7:45 with a 40minute lunch ending a little bit later. Currently on the schedule that's that we have right now and now give that time to Dr. I'm just going to if I can add Mr. President and board of trustees. Um I think this this is a lot of information. This was just elementary that Missino presented. Can can we just keep it as an information item for now? Not not action until we u I was going to continue discussing this uh even tomorrow maybe we can even discuss it in our budget workshop because it's a lot and I think we need to uh we just need to take all the this information. I didn't realize it was so much. Thank you for that report, Miss Nino.

086But just we haven't even touched middle school and high school yet. So if you're all okay with that, are you are you prepared to bring it to us tomorrow? No, we will continue to have more discussions because this is the first time that all of you see it like myself and I think we need to uh be able to you'll be able to bring it to us tomorrow at the workshop so that we can discuss it a little further. Yes, we can continue discussing it further tomorrow and then and and u and give it a couple of more time, you know, give it some more time. Um, I would like to say, yeah, I think it's great to have more time to to think on this and for our community and our teachers to also

087understand. Um, when I first talked to Dr. Kdman about this, um, this was a way where we could give teachers planning time back. um because we already have the longest days, the longest amount of minutes, the most graduation credit hours requirements, and we all know in this room that we don't pay nearly what our neighboring districts do. So, if administration has already alluded to the fact that they don't want to bring the planning period back, this was an alternative of a way to bring that forward. It's very disheartening when I get a phone call after one of these committee meetings where a principal said, "Oh, so the school board who are not educators are telling us how to do our jobs and when we're going to come in." And it's unfortunate that that was brought

088up because we're just trying to find a way and a solution to this. And if the planning periods are out, then this is a way to to have some time back. So if it's a later start date, then you have or a later start time, then you have time to plan in the morning. Or if we're shutting down earlier, then you have time to plan in the afternoon. And we all know that committees can be made up of however many people to vote the way you want them to vote. So, I'm glad that there was an overall survey um because things can be skewed to be presented however they want to be presented. It's just unfortunate that it's seen as this the board deciding this for our staff when we're just trying to find a

089solution because we have heard all year about the planning periods. And I can tell you nobody on this table wanted to take away those planning periods, but we were in a budget crunch and here we are. And again, the state and the federal monies don't look like they're going to come in where we need them to come in. And so, we can't say that we demand that the planning periods be back. So, this was just a way to help the situation along. So, I would hope that our principles and our teachers and staff, we're not trying to tell you how to do your job. We know it's so it's so hard and there's so much to do within a day. But there's neighboring districts around us that have dyslexia programs, UIL, sports, athletics, uh, band,

090and everything and arts and everything to fit into the day. And they get it done. Maybe not to the caliber that Macallen ISD gets it done, but there has to be a solution. And this was just one idea on how to bring that forward. So, I hope that our Macallen ISD family will allow us the grace to really research this and understand it to see what is the best middle ground for everybody financially and for everybody's mental sanity because our teachers are drowning and they have been reaching out to us daily if if not, you know, hourly to let us know that that they're asking for help. So, thank you. Thank you. I have a question for legal. So being that the the way that the motion was written, it's to put it on or

091to allow for future discussion in future budget workshops and given everything that's been said today, what would be the motion that we would be taking today on this act? Should we just table it? Table it. That would be the easiest way to go. I'll make that motion. I move to table. Okay, I'll second. Um, I think that she might have wanted to say something. Yes. Trustee Dr. KDman, do you have something to add? I I don't have anything to add. I agree that I think we should all take a minute to kind of review the presentation and have an opportunity tomorrow to discuss it maybe a little bit more in depth. So, yeah. I What what do I need to say, Mr. Ball, for the motion table this conversation? I already made the motion. Sophia

092made the motion. Oh, gotcha. Second. Thank you. Got it. So, we already have a second as well by trustee Hadad. So, Sophia made the motion to table and second by trustee had but can uh can we allow Dr. De to finish the middle school and high school before you take action on the table or do you need to take action on the table and still allow us to present? I'd like to just see uh where we're going now with middle school and high school. I know we're not making decisions today, but do we wait till there's a motion in a second? You can go ahead and vote is going to be tabled as long and then we can continue that you can continue with the presentation. There's no harm in that. All right, let's do

093that. Okay. So, uh all those in Yeah. All those in favor? I I All those opposed motion passes 70. Now, uh Dr. O, you'll continue with the middle school and high school. What has been done up to now? I do want to add what trustee deaga said as my discussions with other trustees has been about how can we find a better balance, how can we be more fair to our teachers uh because of certain things that we could not afford last year and how can we maybe give back by looking at the times. So that's always been the intent and the discussions that we've had up here and that's what the direction was for Miss Nino, Dr. for the oil to to put these committees together to see if we could find a balance and

094and a and a better way to see how we can compensate uh what we've done in the past because of budget constraints. That is correct, Dr. Gutierrez. And um my presentation part will be short. I did um make copies of the full report with all the options that were presented and today I'm just going to present the two that each uh I I can present and then y'all can see it I think because then you'll be okay. Okay. I I think that that will be best. I I won't take long. So um on Friday uh a group of parents, teachers and um directors and two middle school principles uh came together to review several options of the bill schedule that we had provided. We uh who was we that we provided? It was Dr. Ganales,

095Miss Angela Allen um and also content coordinators and myself. We created some options so that we can facilitate the discussion and the conversation uh and these meetings and so we presented those. They had the opportunity to discuss the options, the pros and cons. Then you will see it in the full report and then they were asked if they wanted to create their own option uh and then also compare it to the current uh bill schedule that we have. We did invite the parents from the superintendent parent advisory group and then also the lead teacher representatives as many as they were available. So for the middle school, we had option one which was the regular bill schedule, the current one that we have right now. Uh the committee likes this schedule because they're used to it.

096And then also uh it provides the integ it keeps the integrity of the nine periods with the block scheduling. And for middle school, we have block scheduling for our RLA and our math uh classes. Also, there's no need to change any students or 504 plans or schedule services through the art like Miss Miss uh Nino explained that we will have to go and art all those students. And then the the con here is that the first period is too long. So, they would like to adjust and they created their own and that's what I'm going to show you in the next slide. Um, I do want to put the statement here that the committee recommends that we adhere to the current schedule and uh for the 2526 school year and proceed with option two for

097the 26 27 school year simply because it's it's a too short of a turnaround and also because of the arts that they will have to go and redo those. So option two it was created by the committee like I said in this option the the start time will be at 7:55 and end time at 3:32. They did um shorten some of the periods and uh and then they wanted to keep the the integrity to the nine periods again. So here are the pros and cons. The committee prefers this option over the current schedule. uh they want to keep the integrity of the nine periods which allow time for the block courses. They can start tutoring extracurricular activities earlier because the teachers will be uh the students will be finishing the instruction earlier and those that

098need to stay they will stay uh for tutorials or extracurricular activities and then teachers will have time to collaborate or plan after students leave. Uh the con is that we'll have to go back to arts for all the students because of the shortening of the periods and uh we would need more after school programs um since students will be out earlier and maybe parents can come that early for them those that that get picked up. Again, the committee wanted me to um uh propose that they want to adhere to the current schedule for the 25 266 school year and proceed with option two because this is the one they like the best for the 26 27 school year. So that was middle school. Then on Thursday, the the day before, we met with high school

099and again it was all the high school principles. We also had the their teacher uh lead representative uh joined them. The master schedulers were there as well and then content coordinators and you can see the directors that were there also in the previous uh group. And again uh they presented the current schedule. They were presented with several options but then they were asked to select at least two options of all of those options that they reviewed. They submitted option one as the current 24-25 schedule and their um the the benefits for it is because it's a 50inute class period and they're good for the instructional time that they need at the high school considering the career and technical education courses that they have also. And that provides or allow uh the travel between campus to

100campus for students to be able to participate on the multiple programs that we offer at McKelen ISD along with the career and technical education courses that we offer here at Mckelen ISD. And some of these courses are offered only at one high school or one campus. And so we have several travels um um trips that go through daily. Uh Mr. Barnhard joined us in the meeting and he says he has over 300 trips throughout the the day. So that's what was the the benefit of the 50-minute period. Also there's no changes to the art schedules for all students and will it will not impact any program. Like I said earlier uh they really don't find any con only that it's long. Uh but again the committee recommends that we stay with the current schedule and

101if possibly we can get the planning period back. That is what uh they recommended. Option two, they created this option and it's very similar to our current um schedule only that we will start earlier uh and end earlier. So the again very similar to the previous one. We stay with the 15-minute class period with all the benefit benefits that I mentioned earlier and also no changes to the art schedules for all students. Will not impact any programs. uh we will have a longer break uh breakfast break which would much need the breakfast period uh to 10 minutes and then cons is very similar to our current schedule. They couldn't really come up with something more in innovative but uh the con will probably be the shorter lunch period. So that is my report and the

102this is the full the full report with all the options that were presented and discussed and we will email it to you Miss Kh Dr. KDman. We'll send you everything and that way you have time to review it all. We just need more time. This is the first time everybody sees it. Yeah. Right. And I would just like to make a quick comment just to piggyback off of uh Trusty Darzelopa. So I brought this item to discussion because again trying to give our staff a win and I've been looking into so many different districts and minutes and everything under the sun. So this my thinking which I brought up last year during the planning period discussion is similar to the planning period. So currently um secondary students graduate with a minimum of 32 credits oftentimes

103a lot more right because they get credits early on and everything else. The distinguished level the top level is 26 credits. So we have a lot of room for you know extra. And my thinking is if we were to consolidate our day, consolidate certain um courses, anything extra, trim the fat a little bit, our students will still graduate at top level, still get into top schools, still get quality education. However, less of a workday for them if they're giving them more time for extracurricular and things like that after school. And then our staff can have more time to plan because now that we have implemented or we've removed the planning period to add a seventh course, some staff members are teaching, you know, four or five different preps. It's getting really really challenging. So I

104think the board's intention with or my intention bringing this to the table is just to discuss what are our options. you know, um this is a non-monetary incentive, right, to incentivize and attract and retain highquality staff that we have while also taking the load off of our students, which I I know is at a very high level right now. So, that was my thinking. I really appreciate the presentations and um I know we can discuss it more tomorrow, but just just for clarification there for everyone watching. And again, we do have our committee members here, including some of our parents. And if anybody wants to um answer any of the questions, they're willing to. Thank you. I think we just we all just need more time to review this and continue to look at it.

105Okay. But thank you all committee members and parents who are here. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. All right. Um moving on item 6B1. We have report regarding 2024 2025 and county independent school district professional employee opinion survey. Dr. Gutierz. Yes. uh Qualdrics along with CESA6 and Macallen Independent School District conducted an employee opinion survey. Dr. Ganales, chief of human resources officer will share more information and this item is for information purposes only. Dr. I'd like to ask uh Twilight to head up there with me to the podium and then any other JPCC representative. Good evening Dr. Gutierrez, the school board. Thank you so much. I am Twilight Figureroa. I am the chairman of the joint professional consultation committee which is made up of the three professional organizations within our school district. And

106I want to thank the committee for taking the time to uh develop this. The whole executive committee was in the development part. So then our timeline for development. Our first we started with the planning which was define the purpose and objectives identify the audience. Our timeline news we used a new survey platform which was Qualric and Cessa Cesa six and our highest priority was to keep the confidentiality of each person taking the survey. So then we looked at drafting our survey questions, the questions targeting sus specific areas, focused questions on actionable data. We ensured unbiased questions and we reduced our number of questions. Our old survey had about 70 questions and we reduced that down to 35 to prevent survey fatigue. Then we've moved into our finalizing of the survey and we used a pilot

107survey with our executive board. We gathered feedback and made necessary adjustments. Then we launched our survey. It was sent to the professional staff and instructional assistants on March 10th and it was closed on April the 1st, 2025. Then we reviewed our survey results and the reviewed survey results were then distributed to our campus principles on May the 16th, 2025. And what we hope to do is to for continuous improvement to use the survey data to implement improvements or make changes as needed. Are there any questions about the development? Okay, I'm going to turn it over. At this time, just want to uh thank the JPCC. I think I'm not sure how it was done in the past, but they were a really collaborative group uh where they helped kind of develop the question. So, if

108any member from the audience isn't part of the JPCC, I think I see Gloria and everybody else is watching from home, I think. Right. So, I just want to thank them for for helping develop the survey. Right. So, it was one that that it was very collaborative and they took a big role in part in helping develop those questions. Uh the next slide, we had a total of four 1,421 surveys that were that uh were taken. Out of those 1,421, uh only 1,261 were fully completed. So, we took those uh 1261. Here's a slide for you. Just a total number of job descriptions that are there, right? You can see 803 teachers filled it out. uh also 155 pair professionals and the rest were scattered amongst administrative uh staff and teams. Uh there's a total

109number of survey responses by location and by description. Uh we do have that there. So if you look at it for example to your left Alvarez Elementary uh 19 filled it out. If you keep on going all the way down the middle you see the high schools and the middle schools and then all the way to the elementary to the far right there as well. So, here's the overall job satisfaction survey. On this one, the survey that was that went out, the committee felt that it was important to go over uh safety, uh student academic achievement, school culture and environment, uh job satisfaction and support, uh work life balance and well-being, communication and collaboration, uh professional development, student behavior and discipline, uh compensation, and of course, schoolboard and superintendent. So those are the categories that

110everybody was asked to participate in. Out of those categories there, if you take the totality of it, it went from a 3.18 to a 4.30. Uh and the average there was a 3.74 from a strongly agreed to a strongly disagree. So it was a fivepoint liyker scale. The next slide is the job satisfaction indicators. These were the top five choices uh that staff said was important to them in the workplace. So number one was compensation and benefits which I know we're working really hard on that one right there. Uh next one is job security uh followed by work that is meaningful to to me uh safe working conditions and then importance of relationship with co-workers. Now under the topic of job satisfaction, support and growth, uh there was questions there that were asked right from

111I received timely feedback uh of my performance to my media supervisor all the way down to have the support to make my work uh life manageable. The average rating there was a 3.78 to a 4.17. Uh and if you take that average there, it total a 3.97. So almost an agree there on job satisfaction and support. uh when you look at communication and collaboration those are the questions that were asked there provided ample opportunities to collaborate with my colleagues I feel comfortable expressing my ideas and thoughts and concerns uh to campus administration the average rating there was from a 3.84 to a 3.95 uh and it came out to a 3.89 89 uh just right below the agree there under professional development right it was important to look at uh how they're doing professional development

112here in our district right so the professional development off helps me uh improve my skills as a teacher another one was I am encouraged to pursue opportunities for career advancement uh that one average range was a 3.77 to a 3.95 and that came out to a 3.86 86 overall. On the next part was work life balance and well-being. Uh we felt this was also an important question to ask on how people are taking care of themselves in the workplace and at home. Uh so I feel supported uh by campus administration when needing to take time off to I am able to maintain a healthy work life balance. Uh that range went from a 3.61 to a 4.28. Uh the average rating there was a 3.94. Then we have the teaching and learning environment. Uh this

113was on student behavior and student discipline. Uh this one went ranged from a 3.59 to a 3.85. Uh the average rating if you average that up it was a 3.72. Uh the next piece here is on school culture and environment. Uh this asks questions from the school actively works to promote the social emotional well-being of students to staff morale. The school is generally positive. Uh the school foster a positive school culture. Uh this one ranged from a 3.79 to a 4.15. Uh that was almost at a four at a 3.97. And the next one is on student academic achievement. Uh this one ranged from a 4.10 to a 4.26. Uh the average rating there was a 4.18. Right. So they discussed I believe students at the school are receiving a high quality education to the

114curriculum is effectively designed to meet the needs of all students. Uh that's an average rating there 4.18. This next one here is on leadership human resources and safety uh school board and superintendent. This one ranged from a 3.07 to a 3.25. Uh so we came in right at a 3.16 average. And then on school safety uh range from a 4.23 to a 4.37. The average rating there was a 4.30. And the questions went on to ask about compensation. Uh this one ranged from a 2.43 to a 4.11. Uh the first one there was information about my employee benefits easy to access. So, they were very happy with being able to find stuff on the website about their employee benefits. The next one was my total compensation, salary, and benefits. Uh, that one average range of

115a 3.27. And any questions at all? This is the first time we use this survey. Uh, so we don't have any data really to compare it to. So, next year we'll do some color graphs that show from 25425 to 2526 how the ratings went up. Uh we are looking forward to of course we want to definitely hit the fours. Uh anything twilight I know that we had mentioned in our meetings that that this survey really uh came out to be like I don't want to say surprising but it was the results were pretty confident. I don't know if you want to kind of talk to that a little bit. Uh when we were looking at that, we were kind of comparing to old surveys that had generally the same type of questions and everything and

116items that were low have been low in the past, but some of the things that had been low have actually improved and come up higher. So that was very, you know, we were happy with that. So, you know, the ones that were low, like the compensation has traditionally always been low. So, we weren't surprised by that. But some of the others, the well-being and the safety issues being so much higher, that we were really proud of and very happy with the improvements there. Thank you. Do you have any takeaways of major items that we need to focus on to help our staff? I I mean I think some of some of the big ones is is the rocks we're already kind of trying to to work on already is definitely compensation and benefits. I know

117we're trying to do that uh and you'll see that tomorrow in the budget workshop as well, right? We're talking about different stipens. We're talking about different compensation. We're talking about hopefully I mean based on on budget based on what the state does too. I mean there's proposals for two, three and 4%. So we know we're definitely trying to close those gaps. I know we did that a little bit last year and the goal I think if not speaking for Dr. is but the goal of the board and you all is to really try to close those gaps. I think that's what we're trying to do uh with these meetings that we're having. The the compensation is the one that stood out the most uh just to and we know that and so uh hopefully we

118can you know continue to um rightsize the district and and continue to increase our our salaries and our compensation for our employees. Um, that's always going to be the one of the biggest priorities that we should have to uh to stay competitive and and keep the highly qualified personnel by offering competitive salaries. We're moving the needle, but we need to continue moving that needle better. I think one thing we're really proud of is when you look at the overall surveys and you look at, you know, when you're going to school and you and you're talking with your professors about school and when you're going to superintendent classes, the main thing that we that we talk about is what are the five most three most important things? What came out on top was student safety, student

119academic achievement, followed by school climate and culture. So, we thought those were really three positive things that came out really on top uh to show that we are moving the needle uh in supporting uh staff and students uh and the culture of our campus and climate in our district. Okay. Thank you. May I ask were there comments allowed on this survey? Yes, ma'am. There were open-ended comments. There were two of them. Uh Twilight can kind of speak to that or I can speak to it. I know Twilight likes these two questions that were asked uh this year instead I'm just curious about the Sorry, go ahead. This year instead of just having a comment section, we asked two questions and the first one was what makes your campus a great place to work so that

120they could put all the things that their campus is doing well. The second one was what are things that your campus could improve on so that they would give them solutions to help support those things. So we wrote them in a very positive light so that we could get some constructive criticism but also solutions to the different problems within each campus. I appreciate that. I think one that I'm focused on right now is the lowest one regarding the school board and the superintendent. And I was just wondering if there was any constructive feedback or if you guys had any insight into why that one was rated so low. I mean, I know it's very awkward right now because you're speaking to the school board, but uh I think we we'd like to know. Well, I'd

121like to know. I I think some of it when you look at the open-ended questions, those were those were given to the to the campuses to look at that with their JPCC committee and their sitebased team. A lot of it I would say is uh compensation, right? That that's one that that staff really wants is is to be uh you know with the with the market rates. I know we're trying to work hard on that one there. Uh you know, some of nothing was that I saw in there was anything like towards individuals, right, that that we that we saw there, but it's just a lot of it is a compensation. Uh some of it could have been uh sure other things as well. Okay. Just just curious if you had any more insight into

122into that and and I don't know again Twyla like you said traditionally maybe this one um is always around that um rating but just curious. Okay. Thank you. Okay. Okay. Thank you all. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you all. Thank you. All right. Moving on. Item 6C1, report regarding the financial and investment report for the quarter of January to March 2025. Dr. Guettis. Yes, Miss Lorina Garcia, Deputy Superintendent for Business and Operations will present the financials and investment report for the quarter of January through March of 2025. Go ahead, Miss Garcia. And this is for information purposes only. Good evening. Uh Dr. Gutierrez, Mr. President, and members of the board. Um today we have the financial investment report. And as I pull up this report, uh this report includes two key components. The

123first one is a summary of the general fund budget to actuals through March 31st, 2025. And it also has a quarterly investment report for the same period. When we look at the general fund budget to actuals, the district approved general fund revenue budget is 251,20,981. And you can find that on column B of the report as shown. As of March 31st, 2025, the district had received about 66 and a half% of that, which is a total of 167,19649, which is found on column D. uh year-to- date expenditures totals uh were 162,6721951. This resulted in a positive margin of 4.2 million, meaning that the revenue exceeded the expenditures for this period. This reflects the normal uh mid-year timing. Uh for example, most of the property tax collections are received by January 31st, contributing to a higher

124percentage of revenue early in the fiscal year. Um the state foundation program payments continue monthly and will we will reconcile in the settle up in September. In regards to the quarterly investment report uh this is for the period of January through March 2025. As of March 31st 2025 the district had 179,514907 in investment funds. Um the interest earnings totaled 1,915,028 in interest income for this quarter. Uh the weighted average yield to maturity for the portfolio was 4.26. As with all the investments, they remain in compliance with the public investment act and the district's investment policy. Uh we do manage this portfolio conservatively uh with the focus on safety, liquidity, and competitive returns. That concludes the financial and investment report. Thank you. Okay. Any discussion? Discussion. Moving on. 6C2 report regarding the delinquent tax collections for

125the period of January uh 1st 2025 to March 31st 2025. Dr. M. Kelly Salazar, partner from the firm Lamberger Goen Blair and Samson LLP, will present the delinquent tax collections report for January 1st through March 31st of 2025. This item is for information purposes only. Masara, go ahead. Thank you, Dr. Keith, President Rietta, and esteemed members of the board. I'm happy to present your delinquent tax collection report for the period of January 1st, 2025 through March 31st, 2025. As always, our delinquent tax collection behalf of Macau ISD focuses on two basic premises. The first is to collect from the individual taxpayer first and secondly use the tool of litigation only as a final option to collect. During this quarter, we completed one demand mailing mailing over 1300 statements to delinquent taxpayers within Macallen ISD. We

126made or received over 1,000 phone calls. We received over 104 payoff requests and we knocked on 175 doors of taxpayers in this area educating them and informing them about their tax delinquency and doing our best to get them into our office to work out a payment agreement. Regarding litigation during this period, we filed 29 lawsuits. We disposed of 18. We filed two tax warrants and two properties were sold reflecting um 20 over $25,000 resulting in payment to the district. And we have 268 lawsuits currently pending um involving Macallen ISD. On the next page, you will see our collection highlights this quarter compared to the last the same quarter last year. You'll see our collections are up. We collected over $252,000 in base tax, over $143,000 in penalty and interest, and we collected over $25,000 that

127were issued back to taxpayers u for refunds due to um protests with the appraisal district or receiving a homestead exemption and and refunds being issued back to the taxpayer. And you'll see, I want to highlight again, I know I've highlighted this to the district before, but the refunds this year in this quarter, double what they were last quarter, I mean last year during the same quarter. So, it's something we're keeping a close eye on and making sure you're informed about it. Um, looking forward to the future, we will continue advocating for the district through litigation is necessary. We are representing the district involving any bankruptcies involving delinquent taxpayers in this area, continuing our mail program, and placing properties up for sale on an asneeded basis. The taxpayers making little to no effort um to make

128um their payments to the district. But that concludes my delinquent tax collection report. I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have. Thank you. All right. Discussion? No. Okay. Thank you, M. Thank you. Have a good evening. you. Thank you. All right. 6C3 discussion and possible action of the Mcount Independent School District April budget amendment for the fiscal year beginning July 1st, 2024 and ending June 30th, 2025. Dr. Gutierz, administration is recommending the approval of the April 2025 budget amendment for the 24-25 fiscal year. Miss Lorena Garcia, deputy superintendent for business and operations, will present more details. Administration is recommending action on this item. Go ahead, Miss Garcia. Uh this month's amendment reflects updated revenue and expenditure data based on the student attendance program funding and financial activity through the fifth six weeks. Um

129the state aid summary for the fifth six weeks. The district's total state aid increased in in general by 1.1 million. This increase came from the restricted program areas including special education which was 1.8 million. College career and military readiness increased by 612,700, early education allotment 217560 and career and technical education increased by 3068. At the same time, the unrestricted state aid uh fund 199 did decrease by 1.2 million. This occurred because while the unrestricted went down, the off the state offset and exceeded that reduction through increased funding in the restricted program areas. We will bring forth another amendment next month uh once the final fifth six six weeks attendance data is finalized. Um other revenue adjustments you see in the expenditure section below. uh interest income in well actually uh still with the revenue um

130interest income increased by 347,845 um we do have some stronger investment portfolio performance we are using these funds to cover the IRS arbitrage payment that we had mentioned at several board meetings back proceeds uh were received in the amount of $220,183 this was for a prior windstorm damage and we will be using those for the lease payment for the staff laptop refresh. Um, federal revenue increased by 29,643. This was for the qualified school construction bund subsidy. Uh, and this was also applied to the IRS arbitrage TRS on behalf contributions increased by 200,000. These are recorded both as a revenue and a matching expenditure cost of functions and they are non-cash entries. they do not affect our fund balance. Um, in the capital projects section, um, the capital projects fund also reflects an increase of 66,728,

131uh, covering part of the same IRS arbitrage payment. Uh, this portion was funded by capital related interest income and eligible subsidy funds. And that concludes the budget amendment presentation. Do you have any questions? Yeah, I have one question. U Miss Garcia, what what is the driver of that fund 73 shift in function 11 for special education? Um the driver is we have had an increased amount of students identified in special ed. So that that boosted our numbers in in terms of the state funding. So more students receiving services. So we receive greater amount of the multiplier effect. Yes. Against the basic allotment. Thank you. I have the same question but on the debt the debt service why did that increase by 600,000 on let me see the debt service Um on the debt service the

132the 600,000 it was um a revision. Do you have that one service was let me see? I think it's down a few more pages in the capital project section. I'm sorry, I'm getting crosseyed here with the little numbers. 7671 Yeah, we may have to get back to you on that one. It's on uh 218 of the board packet, I believe. [Music] I can see that the de service maybe because of the decreases where we're collecting more from the just the 600 increase the revision cuz that's what the collections yeah if it's okay I'd like to get the backup for and then we can provide an update tomorrow if that's okay as part of the budget presentation. That's fine. We just so I can give you the exact accurate. Okay. Any further discussion questions? I move

133to Oh, was that more questions? It's a national project. I'm sorry. Are you still going to cover capital projects? Yes, I covered the cap capital projects. It was uh really it was just an increased in interest earning uh revenues and that was used to pay for the arbitrage. So there was an increase of that. Yeah. Move to approve if and there are no further discussion. Robert, it was a payment to the IRS required. It's on the last page on function 71 increase to the payment for IRS required under federal arbitrage rules uh was related to the maintenance tax note um because we earned uh more interest than what we were allowed to earn on that. So, we had to pay back to the IRS um some arbitrage and we used some of that from interest

134earnings that we received on the maintenance uh tax note to be able to pay back on the capital funds. I'm sorry. Thank you. Okay, I have a motion. Make a second. Trusty Pñena, a second by Trustee Kar. All those in favor? I. All those opposed? Motion passes 6. Okay. 6C4 report regarding Skyward cumulative and parchment migration. Dr. Gutierz. Yes. Um the district will complete uh the migration from current Skyward 2.0 know SMS student information system to skyward uh cumulative with a full go live scheduled for July 14, 2025. The migration to skyward cumulative will meet the district's priorities and goal by significantly significantly enhancing system accessibility, strengthening cyber security through a modern cloud-based architecture and providing robust realtime analytics. Skyward Cumulative will position the district for long-term scalability and sustainability, ensuring our student information infrastructure

135remains adaptable and future ready. Mrs. Judith Castillo Cascamia, executive director for technology. Miss Angela Allen, director of student operations, will present this this report. This item is for information purposes only. Go ahead. Good evening. Thank you, Dr. Gutierrez, President Rietta, trustees. Uh we're going to go ahead today and give you some information on our Skyward cumulative upgrade and our parchment migration. The the new Skyward cumulative will allow us to have a more enhanced system availability and the reason for that is hosted and managed offsite. So that makes us a lot more viable, more resilient because if ever we have any issues here, we're able to enroll students. And this same hosted and managed solution is on our ERP system, which is our employee system. So that means that we'll always be able to hire people,

136we can always pay people. And the same thing with students, we'll be able to enroll them, we'll be able to create grades, anything that we need to do, we can do it at any time, anywhere. So that's the the reason why we are moving over to this system and of course it has improved functionality. There's built-in analytics and it actually empowers our users to be able to create their own dashboards on the fly. So it's a great system to move forward on and uh we're really excited to migrate over. I'll go ahead and hand it over to Thank you. So, as you can see there on the left, that is our current system that we're utilizing. And this is an upgrade. So, we're moving from Skyward to Skyward, just a different version of Skyward. And

137as you can see on the right, as Miss Esamia mentioned, we have much greater improved analytics and um data visibility. And there are quite a few of us here in the district that are team leaders on this project. Um, you know, we have great leaders who are taking the lead on certain areas of this migration and you can see there the people who are representing the district as we move forward with moving from our current version of Skyward into the new cumulative system. Go on to the next. So as we are preparing for this migration, there are several um things that we need to make sure are ready before we could fully migrate to this system. And you can see some of the checklists there that we have gone through. So we looked in general

138at the product to see if it met our district's needs, which it does. We have to look at our data in the current system as it migrates over into the new system to make sure that the data is migrating over cleanly. We also have training that is available to us as district leads and then we pass that training along to district staff as well. We look at the different modules that are available to make sure everything that we have in the current system is available and ready to go in the new system. And then we've created a timeline for our migration as well. So as part of the project planning, we have regularly scheduled meetings with our um Skyward consultant where we look at data integration with the cumulative system. We also look at integrations

139when it comes to thirdparty vendors. I know many of our teachers utilize clever for students and teachers to access our instructional materials. So, we want to ensure that that third-party integration is working well as we're migrating to the new system and upgrading onto all of the features. We look at the configurations to make sure that what um staff are used to seeing in the current system, they're also going to see in the new system. And making sure that our security for our users is built around specifically what they do and tailored to their needs, as well as participating in the meetings and trainings that Skyward offers to us. We also have training and support for our users. We have um various training resources available to them including the Skyward provided professional development center where we

140have assigned out different webinars if you will and different um videos for them to watch. We also have ongoing support through the team leaders, district team leaders and our district team leaders have ongoing support through the skyward as well. We also look at the training and support based on roles and responsibilities. So um based on if you are an assistant principal at a campus, what kind of training and support do you need versus if you are a teacher at a campus, what kind of training and support will you need? We have dedicated web pages within um the district whether it's SharePoint the intra district web pages as well as forward- facing web pages for community and again the district leads receive support from Skyward and our district leaves serve as support for the rest of

141our uh community and finally we have developed how-to guides depending on the roles and responsibilities of our various staff members and community members that will be rolled out as well so everyone knows how to utilize the system efficiently. And part of our ongoing supports is we have dedicated um task force members. We have an administrative access. Those are our campus users. And we also have a teacher access task force group. The responsibilities and roles of the task force are to evaluate the system and provide feedback. If there's anything that's not working in the system or not currently functioning as they're used to seeing it in the system, then the district leads report that back to Skyward so that Skyward can make those enhancements. Uh we simulate different tasks. So we'll ask the users, okay, what

142is it that you do on a daily basis? Try to replicate that in this new system and provide us feedback on that as well. Uh we also ask that those um people on the task force be the um expert at their campus. So if they are a teacher on the task force then they are the people that other teachers are going to go to and um look for whenever they have questions. All right. So there's just a little picture of the task force meeting. We have had several meetings of the task force. We've had four sessions with the administrative task force and we've had three sessions with the teacher task force. Here are some dates for our timeline. Some so some important dates to make note of. On June 10th, we will close Skyward online

143registration to families. So if families are out there that still have not re-registered with us, um now is a good time to do that. Uh we will be closing that on June 10th. And so we want to make sure that anyone who hasn't registered that they can go ahead and get register in in the current system and we will reopen registration later on but it will be in the new system. So we encourage everybody to register right now in the current system. I have a question about that. So we're closing it on June the 10th and do you have a date to reopen it? June the 25th is that uh July 15th we'll reopen. Wow. That's a big gap and I think that the potential for parents to get frustrated and say, you know what,

144I'm just going to go somewhere else exists. And Lisa, so don't do it. Do we have a backup for that? We have that. That's a good point. Yeah. Good evening, everyone. Yes. So, we looked at the historical data for registration and re-registration. And I'll start out by saying that our re-registration, so our current families that are with us, we are at 98% re-registered right now. There are just about 400 kiddos that are still pending. So that um number is shrinking by the day. When you look at new registrations and enrollment, our office of course will be available to assist parents. Our number is everywhere. But historically the number of families accessing for new registrations between this time period is less than 20. It's very very very small. Okay. Want to get that out there. So

145if you haven't registered, register. Yes, please. And you know, we can you can always reach out to student outreach and they will be more than happy to assist anyone who hasn't reregistered. Even if it's between those dates. I just wanted to let everybody in the public watching know, tell your friends that if you can't register, call me. Yes. Don't go somewhere else. Yeah, that's all. Thank you. And then a communication plan. Um, student operations is working closely with student outreach and strategic partnership with which is Miss Lisa Gavas who's standing behind me on making sure parents have some information on the web page when it comes to this upgrade into the new system. We'll have some video instructions, some newsletters and some social media postings will go out as well and um, we are providing

146campuses with that information so that they can pass that along to their families. Yeah. Um, I have a quick question on that. So, who are the like triage specialists when a parent gets frustrated with the new system and they call the campus and say, "I can't use the new like is does every campus have somebody that's going to pick up the phone and is ready to walk them through?" Our campuses definitely have someone who's ready and available and as well student outreach does an excellent job at um assisting parents with registration just like they do right now. So, whoever they're used to con Yes. whoever they're used to contacting. Um, so we have campus staff. We also have strategic partnerships student outreach who is always assisting parents and they can always call department of technology.

147They have texts to assist parents with that as well at the campus. At the campus. Great. And not just for the registration but like the first time using the new app. Absolutely. Will parents have to like download the new app? Yeah. So, great questions. Thank you so much for asking. So, it's going to be exactly the same app. The only difference is when we go live, parents will need to delete the app and then just reinstall. So that is all that's required. It will be the same. So we're trying to make this as as smooth a transition as possible because we know that you know moving into anything new like when you get a new phone it's it's difficult at first, right? Change is difficult. So we don't know our passwords, right? They're like saved

148and so just like Yes. So, Student Outreach can assist you and your your child's campus can assist you as well. So, yeah, we'll get you all taken care of. Are we able to send to his point push notifications like when parents get to open up and say you have to delete this, install the new one? So, we will be sending out communication to remind parents to delete the app and reinstall. Yes, that's part of our communication plan for parents. Great questions. Thank you. All right. And we have one just last slide I think. Well, a couple of other slides. So, this is just a sample of what the family access will look like. As you can see, um it's a little different. It's more tiles now than actual just modules and sections from what you're

149used to. So, just a sample of what that's going to look like in family access. And then the last piece of information is the need my transcript migration. So need um need my transcript was bought out by parchment. So we are migrating from need my transcript to parchment. Um that is not by choice. That is because they were purchased and so we are um fully ready and capable for migrating from need my transcript to parchment. our users should see very little difference because uh need my transcript has been working directly with parchment. So if you'll go to the final slide there uh we do have a last day to request transcripts for the class of 2020 to the class of 2025 which is June 18th. And a reminder always goes out to parents because we

150do close um transcript requests when we were when we are um not in office. So, I think families are pretty used to seeing that. Um, the only difference here is that's going to be the last day to request transcripts for those who are used to receiving transcripts for free, right? Because we do offer our students uh free transcripts up through post after five years of graduation, right? So now with the new migration, students who are current students will still receive transcripts, but those who are no longer um students, no longer current students, those who have graduated, there will be um a fee that is applied to those transcripts. All right. And then we will have a new link that will go live on July 14th. That will be the parchment link. Awesome. Parents are already

151asking So, I'm answering as you're going. Thanks. Thank you. And then you can always direct them to student operations or student outreach and we're always happy to assist parents with any questions they might have. Thank you so much. Okay. Thank you. Item 6C5, discussion and possible action on the application to TEA for the optional flexible day school day program for the 202526 school year. Dr. administration is recommending for the uh the approval of the optional flexible school day program application for the 2526 school year. Miss Elizabeth Kavaso, director of strategic partnerships and student outreach is available for questions and administration is recommending action on this item. I move to approve. Second. I have a motion by trustee. I do have one question on this. Go for it. um what is our chronic absenteeism rate in

152the district right now? That is a great great question. So our chronic absenteeism, so when we look at students who are absent more than 10 days at a semester or 18 days overall is under 10%. It's pretty low. Um when we look at the number of students that are eligible for this program, it's a little bit different because we're looking at all absences regardless if they're excused or unexcused. And so at any given time um about a thousand students could be on this program, 1500 students could be on this program. Um we try to focus our attention on students who it's not a one-off situation, right? So it's not a they had an illness, they had some absences, but otherwise they're great. Um we really are focusing our attention on students who just like have

153a true challenge getting to school on a regular basis. Yeah. Great. Well, I'm glad to hear that it's below 10% for the chronic absenteeism rate, especially given some of the trends in other parts of the state and other parts of the country postco. Um, so great work. Sure. All right. I have a motion by Trusty Pena, second by trustee dear Lopez. All those in favor? I. All opposed? Motion passes 6. Item 67 discussion possible action on 2024 2025 additional days school year waiver. Dr. Gutz. Yes. Uh due to weather events on January 21st, 2025 and March 28, 2025, the district needs to submit the additional day school year waiver to Texas Education Agency to meet the required 180 days of instruction. Miss Angela Allen, director of student operations, is available to answer any questions if

154needed. Administration is recommending action on this item. I move to approve. Second. I have a motion by trustee Pñena, second by trustee delegal Lopez. All those in favor? I I I. All opposed. Motion passes 60. Thank you. Item 6C8 discussion and possible action on request for proposal number 2025-1037 property and casualty insurance. Dr. Gut administration solicited proposals for property and casualty insurance. We have Mr. Andreas Silva, director of employee benefits and safety management is available to answer any questions. Administration is recommending action on this item and this is a two-part action item. However, I'd like to have Mr. Silva come over to explain to the board the the two proposals that were submitted and the recommend the recommendation we're making and why. Go ahead, Mr. Silva. Yes, sir. Thank you. As uh Dr. mentioned, um

155we did have for the first time in in several years uh two property proposals to consider. Um we had a proposal that had uh limits to what we currently have in essence a renewal uh as current but we also had a proposal with uh additional limits uh some all the way up to the full insured uh property value. So a little bit of background on that. So the district has about 700 million in uh building and contents values. uh for the past several years it was difficult to get insurance up to those full uh insured values. We've been seeing limits that are lower and lower deductibles higher and higher. So we were kind of happy to see that now we had an option to consider that uh at least in certain areas we had uh

156total insured values. Uh it wasn't across all property uh and all limits and and all coverages. However, uh we did have some some higher limits. Now in terms of the cost just like in our auto or in our own home uh higher higher limits lower deductibles come with higher cost and that was the case here. So uh while we did have options for for all those limits and it came at a higher cost and ultimately the highest ranked vendor is basically the current coverage at the current limits at the lowest cost of the two. So we are recommending uh the award on the property side to uh the Montavo Insurance Group uh as presented there in your table. That's the property on the casualty side of the of the lines. We only received one proposal.

157Uh so we're recommending that that one vendor which is happens to be also the Montal Insurance Group. Why do you think we only got one proposal? So, uh, I can't tell you specifically can tell you historically some of the feedback we get. Uh, not enough, uh, market out there. Uh, so perhaps somebody went out to the market and couldn't get access. Uh, wasn't enough competition out there. We've heard in the past where they have received proposals, but then they compare it to what we have currently, and they make a decision that, oh, well, we're not as competitive, and they don't they don't bid at all. So, it could be a combination of things. Uh ultimately we don't know exactly why we don't get the the greater number of proposals. Uh it just varies year to

158year. I have a question. Um is there a minimum that we are required to be insured for? Because just looking at it 75 million about 10% of what we are actually what we have in our district. And so I'm looking at it, we're definitely undervaluing I guess what what's going on. There's 10% and it's underinsuring ourselves for that. Sure. So there there is no minimum. I think the requirement is just that we yourself have to be comfortable that we have adequate coverage. Sure. Uh so there there is no minimum. Yeah. Uh as I said prior to this particular uh RFP uh we were taking what we could get because we were only getting one proposal and as I said the limits were actually coming down down and deductibles were going up and up. So uh

159we couldn't be not insured so we were taking what was available to us. Sure. uh in terms of the limits that we have now we have to consider obviously the the risk uh when we look at name storm is probably our our biggest exposure so that would be one of the categories we'd look at uh so where that limit is in comparison to the all of the perils uh the wind and hail those kinds of things uh so all all that does come into play but again ultimately it's it's a matter of whether uh the district and the budget can afford the higher deduct the lower deductibles perhaps with the higher limits and in this case uh based on our scoring methodology the number one ranked vendor was the with the limits that we currently

160have got okay any further discussion okay do I have a motion also moved so there's It's a two-part motion. So, you'll read part one off of there. So, I move um to approve request for proposal number 2025 1035 property and casualty insurance and award PCF insurance services of the west uh LLC DBA Montavo Insurance Agency. Sorry, I lost my place. With Indian Harbor School Board legal liability and Texas political subdivisions, general liability, autophysical damage, auto liability, and property through a multi-layer group carries for a term of one year effective June 1st, 25 through May 31st, 26 with the option of renewal for up to two additional one-year terms subject to favorable renewal rates and terms. Second. So, I have a motion by trustee Hadad and a second by Trustee Pñena. All those in favor? I

161I All opposed. Motion passes 6. Do I have I move to authorize the chief human resources officer to execute any necessary property and casualty insurance application documents for the initial term of the policy and any subsequent renewals required to bind coverage. I'll second that as well. I have a motion by trustee Carion, a second by Trusty Pena. All in favor? I oppose. Motion passes 6. Thank you. All right. Uh item 6C9, discussion and possible action on final payment to DNF Industries on contract number 2025-047 Dorthia Brown Middle School Sports Lighting. Dr. Guutieres. A final walkthrough of the project has been completed with facility staff, the contractor, and the engineer. All the items on the punch list have been completed. Mr. Ruin Trevinho, our executive uh director for for facilities and maintenance and operations is available

162to answer any questions and administration is recommending action on this item. Okay. Discussion. Well, I move to approve. Second. I have a motion by Trusty Pñena, second by Trust Dear Lopez. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion passes 6. Okay. Item 60, board of trustee items 61, approval of board of education meeting minutes. 61A, school safety and security meeting January 9th, 2025 61B. Board workshop, April 15th, 2025, 5:30 p.m. 61C. Board workshop, February 18th, 5:30 p.m. 61B. School safety and security meeting April 22nd, 2025. 61E regular board meeting April 22nd, 2025. 61F board workshop April 29th, 2025. Do I have a motion? I move to approve. Okay, I have a motion uh by Trusty Pñena, second by Trustee Deaga Lopez. All those in favor? All opposed? Motion passes. Mr. President, before we move on to

163item seven, resource to close session, I'd like to wish Dr. Kamacho, Dr. Kamacho, happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Second. Go for it. Closing favor. Item seven, recess to close session. Board of trustees may go into close session pursuant to section 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, 551.076, 076 and 551.089 Texas Government Code discuss the following. 7 A human resource recommendation for school year 2025 26. 7B discussion of human resources employee resignations and retirees for school year 2024 25. 7 C discussion regarding school safety and security. 7D pending and or potential litigation. 7E possible real estate acquisition. At 7:56 we are in executive session. All [Music] right, time is 8:29 p.m. and we are back from close session. Right. Item number nine, action on items in close session. 9 a discussion and possible action of human

164resources recommendations for school year 20 202526 human resources is submitted a list of recommendations for the 2526 school year under separate cover for discussion during close session administration is recommending action on this item to approve second I have a motion by trustee second by trustee pña all in favor motion passes 9B. Discussion of human resources, employee resignations, and retirees for school year 202425. Human resources submitted a list of resignations and retirees for the 2425 school year under separate cover for discussion during close session. This item is for information purposes only. Okay. 9 C nothing to report. 9 nothing. Thank you, sir. Item number 10, schedule meetings. 10 A, board workshop budget, May 28th, 2025, 5:30 p.m., Dr. Ricardo Chapa, Boardroom, Administration Building. 10B, board workshop, new board member orientation, June 5th, 2025, 9:30 a.m. Dr.

165Ricardo Chapa, board meet, boardroom. 10 C regular board meeting June 10th 5:30 Dr. Ricardo Chapa boardroom 10 special board meeting level three grievance June 16th 5:30 Dr. Chapa boardroom. All right. Item number 11, adjournment. Do I have a motion? All right. Motion by trustee Lope. Second by trustee. All right. At 8:30. All those in favor? I. All opposed. At 8:31, we are ajourned. Thank you all.