001e e e a regular meeting of the Board of Trustees of the McAllen Independent School District will be held Tuesday January 28th 2025 beginning at 5:30 p.m. at the Dr Ricardo Chapa boardroom administration building of the Mallen Independent School District 2000 North 23rd Street Mallen Texas 78501 items listed on this agenda may be taken in an order other than as should on this agenda unless removed from the consent agenda items identified with the cons 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 follows call the meeting to order I have done so at 5:30 p.m. number two U please join me in a moment of silence thank you item three Pledge of Allegiance I
002pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all item number four public [Music] comments hello public comments um we have none tonight item number five superintendent's report item 5A Mallen ISD kids run final mile Dres yes uh Madame President and Board of Trustees each year our students run a 26 mile marathon that begins in the fall and concludes in January with a final mile run on January the 18th Mel students participated in the final mile event we have a video on this event if they can play the video at this time it's so important for the collaboration between the city and the school district it's an amazing thing that we do this is our
00311th year of running the Kids Marathon there is about 3,000 students that will run today run their final mile it's just it's an incredible thing you have to come out here and watch it this is their final mile they started back in October at the at the stadium and then it's such an amazing thing today so their parents can be right the 5K or the 10K or the half or the full and then their kids get to run the final marathon of their 26.2 M marathon it's a great way to get kids out in the city out in the city parks and and The Parks of school district here that we have nine city parks with the school district it's an incredible collaboration Nobody Does it but McAllen you know it actually started with a
004conversation between my brother the late commissioner Scott crane he was a marathon runner for the city they had their City Marathon uh he wanted children out his own children my children our children out running in the city and joying the City streets and so it was an idea to come together and have them run every day at school with their PE coaches and then when they get to that last mile the 26th mile they could run it here with a big city marathon and actually they finished the actual Finish Line it's the proper Marathon they start off at elementary school running this as a one mile finish and then today they're running the half they're running the full they're running the relay as adults so it's a great thing to see them grow into this
005you know they're in their 20s now they started when they were 10 years old and here they are still running still doing something great little video um consequently consequently the man who won the marathon overall Miguel anel Ramirez is a class of' 07 maai graduate so congratulations to him and to whoever his track coach was item 5 b Mallen ISD showcases high school programs DRZ the melen ISD has at all event featured high school programs for our middle school students and their parents as students get ready to make decisions on what they would like to study in high school they got to see the many opportunities and programs that are available in Mallen ISD we also have a video this event they can play the video this today we're hosting the Mallen Hass at all
006event and this is an event for parents and students of all sixth seventh and eighth graders primarily eighth graders to help them become familiar with all the different programs that are available here at Mallen Ias D we have presentations from the utrgv Collegiate Academy achieve Early College High School our IB Program our Advanced academics program on-ramps program regular dual enrollment we've got so many different programs available for students that we wanted to hold an event to have parents come in and ask questions and become really familiar to see which program best fits their [Music] children I brought her in so that she can you know see the different options that you know she has as far as like classes or courses that she can take for the future coming from Travis and coming to maai
007I mean it's it's something excited you know uh so it's something different something new you know for [Music] her item 5c the role of Schoolboard trustees Dr guz yes uh as this uh this is School Board recog nition month in Texas January we know trustees work hard making decisions on policy budgets programs facilities and other items that have a major impact on our schools with the help of our student ambassadors we put together this video for our trustees and recognize them for all the work that you all do throughout the year but this month of January we recognize uh the hard work of our Board of Trustees and display that video now hey have you guys ever thought about what school board members actually do I know they're important but what do they actually do
008oh I know this one they're kind of like the people in charge of all the big decisions like what programs we get and where the money goes they make sure our schools run smoothly exactly I heard they also help decide which activities we have like sports teams fans and all the cool clubes oh so they're the ones who make sure we have art classes science labs and new tech right yep and not just that they also make sure that we have safe buildings good meals and our schools are a great place to learn they're always making things work better for us I didn't realize they did all that so they're like the reason we have everything we need for school yeah they do a lot and what's cool is that they actually listen to the
009community like students teachers and even our parents so they know what's best from a kind that's awesome so they're not just making rules they're really thinking about what's best for us exactly they make sure we have everything we need to succeed they even help bring in Community Partners and keep our schools connected oh yeah like when they talk about school attendance they're making sure we show up and get the best education possible definitely they know that when we're in school we have more opportunities to learn grow and get ready for our future I guess we really owe them a big thank you for everything they do they're helping us even when we don't realize it totally maau I School Board is always working to make sure we have the best teachers programs and a safe
010place to learn so next time we hear about the school board we should remember to show appreciation they're making sure our schools are the best they can be yeah thank you school board members for all your hard work work we really appreciate thank you thank you thank you thank [Music] you super cool thanks y'all item 5D discussion and possible action on Proclamation regarding School Board recognition month um drus January School Board recognition month in Texas we appreciate our trustees who devote so much of their time away from their families for the betterment of our students parents staff and our community as a high performing School District it would not be possible without this hardworking school board at this point I'd like to turn it over to our director of marketing and Communications Mr Mark May
011who has more on this item and we are recommending action on this item as well go ahead Mr may all right thank you Dr gutieres and uh ladies and gentlemen of the board uh each January we honor the community uh who serve on their local school boards the 2025 Schoolboard recognition theme is leadership for tomorrow's Texas in Texas Schoolboard members are elected by community members who trust them to do what is best for students this connection ensures that board members are accountable to local voters attuned to the needs of their communities and dedicated to a brighter future and we want to show our appreciation we have some students representing our high schools and our vertical teams here tonight they'll read our Proclamation for Schoolboard recognition month and if our trustees if y'all could uh move
012to the front so we can take some pictures we will get started and we're going to start with uh McAllen High School representing their vertical team is Grace Murray student body president whereas the mission of the public schools is to meet the diverse educational needs of all all children and to empower them to become competent productive contributors to a Democratic Society and an everchanging world now we'll pose for a quick picture all right thank you student exit to your left next we have Memorial High School and Martin Bettis student council president whereas local school board members are committed to children and believe that all children can be successful Learners and that the best education is tailored to the individual needs of the child [Music] to and now representing row High School in its vertical team
013we have Gabriela Tes student council president whereas local Schoolboard members are strong advocates for children parents and employees and community members and are responsible for communicating the needs of the school district to the public and the Public's expectations to the district you [Music] and now representing achieve Early College High we have Kyra agad student council president now therefore we do hereby declare our our appreciation to the members of the Mallen Independent School District Board of Trustees and declare the month of January 2025 as a school board recognition month [Applause] have and now representing Lamar Academy we have Isabella Briner student ambassador we urge all citizens to join us in recognizing the dedication and hard work of local school board members and in working with them to mold an education system that meets the needs of
014both today and tomorrow's children the and now representing utrgv McAllen ISD Collegiate Academy we have John Lee student ambassador hello our school board president will set her hand and cause the Seal of Mallen Independent School District to be AIX on the 28th day of January 2025 just that's [Music] and once again congratulations to our school board awesome thank you Natalie our name yes oh that one does thank you to everybody that also makes it easy for us to do what we do we appreciate you as well thank you thank you Mr B need my glasses I can't see we need to vote on this one yeah we're recommending action on this item on the so moved second I've got a motion by trusty Ali and a second by trusty Riva all those in favor signify
015by saying I I all those opposed signify by saying nay the eyes have it motion passes 60 now item number six donations uh 6A discussion and possible action for the approval of the pavers and artificial turf at Dr Pablo Perez Elementary Dr guz the parent teacher organization PTO at Dr Pablo Perez Elementary donated favors for playground area and a separate small section as well as adding artificial turf for open field Miss Nino associate superintendent for instructional leadership will share more information and we are recommending action on this item go ahead yes thank you Dr guz um in the slide it's just a breakdown of what those amounts um total to be overall $95,600 $600 and those are just um some visuals of the three areas for the uh the landscape there at Dr Pablo pis
016Elementary and also our principal Veronica Delgado is here if there's any questions thank you so moved second I have a motion by trusty Alisa and a second by trusty Rivera all in favor signify by saying I I I all those opposed signify by saying nay motion passes 60 congratulations bis Elementary good stuff and the item seven through 7 a through 7e consent agenda do I have a motion folks Madam chair I move to approve the consent agenda items 7 a through 7 e second I have a motion by trusty delara Lopez and a second by trusty Rivera all those in favor signify by by saying I I all those opposed signify by saying nay motion passes 60 we are on fire y'all item eight instructional Services instruction leader instructional leadership Human Resources business and operations
017and Board of Trustees items 8A instructional Services instructional leadership um 881 report regarding digital learning and libraries Department Dr guz and Administration will report on the digital learning and libraries Department miss an Vega director of digital learning and Library services will have more information on this and this is for information purposes only go ahead missa good evening just a quick overview of what my department does I've got my whole crew there I'm very lucky to have every single one of them um we have three major goals all of our goals are always geared towards our teachers um and our students the our teachers we're going to start off with them so we work with our teachers we had uh approximately a little over 800 of our teachers attended technovate which we had for two days
018so far this year we've trained 21 2,126 teachers had at least 3,000 plus that was last week and then we had 14351 hour of code participants um we've got our live Library team who works extremely hard every single day with our students uh so far this year we've had 45 literacy events uh we've had 10,565 visitors and that would be community members parents Etc we see 14,496 that's the average students that we see in libraries every single week uh to date of course this was last week we had 163,50 162 books checked out uh AR is what our students use in elementary um they read a book and then they test on it so far we've had 167,168 193,194 because our Librarians were the ones that took charge with my team on campus uh last
019week we had District Battle of the books and what the students do is they read books and then they come together we have questions about a 100 questions that they have to um answer and um now the teams that you see on the bottom will go to Regionals um in February Jackson will go for our Battle of the book junr uh to represent Mallen ISD gonz will go for our elementary DeLeon will go for our middle school and Lamar will go for our high school um we also work with our students in Esports uh this is something that we have at just about every campus I think we have two we do not but everybody else does and all of our kids uh work either um in elementary they work with little Esports which is
020Minecraft and then we do regular Esports in middle school and high so far Morris has won two competition uh two competitions region-wide and Lamar um won the utrgv fall cup we've got chess that uh our department also works with uh we have a lot of kids that participate in fact we have a um Regional competition being hosted at delion this weekend on Saturday and Sunday and every year we've got kids that are making it to re I mean to Nationals and then last we've got Tech Wars this is something that takes place in May if you've never then it's a lot of fun we've got underwater robotics kids build their Battle Bots we've got rocket launching we've got digital uh design and this will be the first year that we have um robots that kids
021will receive a robot and then they have to solve a real world problem with that robot um they're supposed to be coming in in the next two weeks so hopefully um they get everything finished and that's that's what my department does any questions no y I did it make thank you Miss good thank you good job item 8B Human Resources 8b1 discussion and possible action on the resolution ordering election for trustees in mallan Independent School District to be held on Saturday May 3rd Dres yes being presented before the board is the approval of the resolution ordering election for the trustees in Mallen Independent School District to be held on Saturday May 3rd 2025 the resolution calls for the election of Trustees Place three Place six and place 7 to be filled along with the approval
022of polling sites times and dates Dr Canales Chief Human Resources officer is available to answer any questions we are recommending action on this item so move second I have a motion by trusty Alisa and a second by trusty Riva all those in favor signify by saying I I I all poos signify by saying nay motion carries 60 item 8 C Business and operations items uh 8 C1 report regarding Texas taxes collected for October through December 2024 Dr guz Miss Lorena Garcia our Deputy superintendent for business and operations will report on the taxes collected by the idalgo County tax office on behalf of Mallen ISD for the quarter of October through December of 2024 this is an item for information purposes only go ahead Miss Garcia um good evening um the the quarterly report is for
023October uh taxes collected as well as uh November and December um our taxes uh are doing well in terms of collections we are doing better than than we were last year at this time our uh tax levy original tax levy is um 89 m767 564 um for the month of October uh it got started off slow at 14% in collections however it started to pick up in November at 99.32% and then um in December it's uh substantially larger at 4233 per. collections to date for December are 38 million 46,0 3369 in preparation for our biggest month which will be January coming up that's all on the tax report thank you way to get ahead of it though item 8 C2 report regarding the monthly financial and quarterly investment report for December 2024 DRZ Miss Lorena
024Garcia our Deputy superintendent for business and operations will present the financials and cour investment report uh for December of 2024 and this item is also so for information purposes only go ahead we are at the half of Mark and we are presenting the uh financial report first of all uh where uh we identify in comparison to last year um at this time our uh year-to-date actual in terms of Revenue is 109 million and then expenditures are actually lower than that at 100 million so that gives us revenues over expenditures of 9.6 million for our fund B bance and then I'm now going to present the the investment report for the quarter of October through December uh we are doing quite well at the half half year mark already uh we have uh collect earned about
0253.4 million in investment earnings um we did budget 3 million as a an amount so we have exceeded that so we feel we can collect another uh 3 million in investment earnings and that would be additional Revenue that we would have that would go to our fund balance our weighted average maturity is at 4.30 uh we we uh do anticipate interest rates to go down maybe one more time uh this year so we feel that we can capitalize on investment earnings for the rest of the the fiscal year and here are the the statistics um for the so for the quarter ending is um our earnings are 17 7 million 93045 that concludes the investment earning report thank you item 8c3 report regarding interlocal agreement 2017-17 3 allocation of quarterly payment agreements with ialo County
026Appraisal District Dr guz the agreement between the district and ialo County appraisal district is set forth from the agreement made in 1982 for the allocation of quarterly payments pursuant to the Texas property tax code section 6.06 e this item is for information purposes only so we are uh simply reporting the payment that we're statuto obligated to to uh pay uh for uh the appraisal district um to process our property appraisals the fee did go up this year um we are projecting an assessment of 1.2 million um and uh last year it was uh 995,000 186 $86 I'm sorry uh what they'll do is they'll adjust based on actual uh apprais values um at the end of the term perfect item 8 C4 discussion and possible action on the resolution approving independent sources for investment training
027and designation of investment officers Dr guz the resolution lists the independent sources who Prov provide investment training sessions related to investment responsibilities Additionally the resolution names Deputy superintendent for business and operations Chief Financial Officer director of accounting coordinator for budget and and coordinator of accounting as the district's investment investment officers Miss Lorena Garcia Deputy superintendent for business and operations is available to answer any questions we are recommending action on this item and basically this is that our uh administrators from the business office need to be trained every two years and certified uh and so this is just a requirement that we need to comply with our administrators to to be trained from the business office so mooved I have a motion by trusty Alisa and a second by trusty Rivera all those in favor signify
028by saying I I all those opposed signify by saying nay motion passes 60 item 8D Board of Trustees items 8 D1 approval of Board of Education minute meeting meeting minutes 881a regular board meeting January 17 2025 at 5:30 p.m. need we are recommending action on this item Administration Mo to approve the minutes I have a motion by trusty Rivera and a second by trusty dagara Lopez all those in favor signify by saying I all those opposed signify by saying a motion passes 60 and item nine recess to close Clos session Board of Trustees may go into closed session pursuant to sections 551.071 55107 2 551.074 551.074 and [Music] 551.074 25 9B discussion of human resources employee resignations and retirees for school year 2024 2025 9 C discussion regarding superintendent's Employment contract 9d discussion regarding School
029Safety and Security 9e pending anual potential litigation 9f possible real estate acquisition we are in close session at p.m. e e e at 6:27 p.m. we are back in Open Session uh before we get into matters I want to thank the Texas classroom Teachers Association for providing us a nice little dinner tonight we really enjoyed it thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you item we have a GI for you item 11 a discussion and possible action of Human Resources recommendations for school year uh 2024 2025 Human Resources uh submitted a list of recommendations for the 2024 2025 school year under separate cover for discussion during close session and this uh Administration is recommending action on this item so move second I have a motion by trusty Alisa and a second by trusty
030Rivera all those in favor signify by saying I I all those opposed signified by saying nay motion carries 60 item 11b discussion of human resources employee resignations and retirees for school year 2024 2025 Dres Human Resources submitted a list of resignations and retirees for the 2425 school year under a separate cover for discussion during close session this item is for information purposes only thank you very much item 11c discussion and possible action regarding superintendent Employment contract Dres um we recommend it I'm recommending action on this it I don't know what to say Madam president I moved to resend the prior approval of the superintendent's contract Amendment which included a one-year extension and salary increase effective July 1st 2025 and to approve the same contract Amendment maintaining the one-year extension but modifying the salary increase to
031be effective January 17 second I have a motion by trusty Riva and a second by trusty Lopez all those in favor signify by saying I all those post signify by saying nay n motion carries 4 two item 11d discussion regarding School Safety and Security no action no action uh I'm sorry nothing sorry Mr ball item 11e pending and or potential litigation same announcement item 11f possible real estate acquisition and I need a motion to adjourn folks CH I move to adjourn at second we have a motion by trusty Lopez and a second by trusty Alis all those in favor signify by saying I all suppos signify say nay motion passes 60 at 629 and 48 seconds record time folks thank