001It is 5:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 6, 2025. I call this special meeting and work workshop of the King of Independent School District to order. We will have roll call. Joy Dis here. Brian Koopal. Brian Koop. Matthew Chappa here. David Garcia here. Joseph Reese. Joseph Reese. Nelas here. Jacob Perez here. Let the record show that there's a forum of board members present and that this meeting has been hosted in accordance with government code chapter 551, State of Texas Open Meetings Act. We move to the moment simons followed by the pledge of allegiance and the Texas pledge 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. Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one
002state under God, one indivisible. This meeting will be live video stream at https semicolon back slashback slashbit. Back slash 3s r o l uppercase Q and uppercase R. We move to item number four, adoption of the agenda. Do I have a motion to uh adopt the agenda? Okay. Motion by a second. Seconded by Delma. All in favor? I. All oppose. Okay. We'll go to item number five. Public participation. Do we have anyone that wishes to address the board? Mrs. Pettis. Yes. The first one we have is Scott Hamilton. HQ teacher biology in reference to school health. Before we begin, uh, Mr. Maddox, you want to set the ground rules, please? Yes, Mr. Vice President, I don't have a microphone. Your fingers, sir. Three fingers. Thank you, Mr. Vice President, members of the board of trustees.
003Superintendent Dr. Garcia. Yes. So, public comment will be five minutes per person. Please do not speak of any individuals or students otherwise it will be my job to redirect you to our policies that involve grievances for those nature. If you are here with a group of five or more please designate one speaker and I'll give that speaker more time. That way we can uh execute this effectively and more efficiently. Also please remember to be courteous and respectful of the dec which we are in. Thank you. Thank you sir. May I begin? Yes, sir. Okay. I'm sorry. Just wanted to make sure. Okay. Um, thank y'all for letting me speak to y'all this evening. Um, I believe time is very important, so I want to keep my comments as brief as they can. We've got to
004come together as a school district. We've got to find a way to work together in everything that we do. Our ratings have not been great as we know. And I think that the school board, the teachers, the administrators, the students, and the parents all have responsibility for that. I think we all need to take ownership of it and not look for problems, but look for ways to find solutions. Okay? As y'all know, I've only been a teacher here for two years. I had a very good career where I worked for Wells Park, Bank of America, and I handled analytical work for many years. I'm doing this and I'm a teacher here because I care. I'm boots to the ground, got it certified, never taught before and I think, you know, my scores show that I'm
005doing what I need to do in the classroom. Okay. So, I reviewed when it comes to the calendar, I wanted to really look at it. The first thing I did as analytical person is I reviewed the TEA report that many people have been referencing. I did an analytical review of that report on the four and five day calendar. I wanted to make sure that that report was valid so we could utilize it. I have provided over here seven copies for the board members who would like it. There are copies on a seat back here if you may like the full review. I'm not going to read that full review. It's too in-depth and actually it's more of a cliffnote version. But the one thing that I want to walk away from it, there's three things
006that the TA report discusses. They first discuss several basic prior reports. Three of those reports support our 4-day calendar. If you read it, they also discuss their methodology. Their methodology actually has five different parts in it that are so weak, I wouldn't even present a report to one of my prior companies because I'd be fired on the spot. The last part is that it used over pushing urban districts versus rural districts in the report. Of course, the urban districts for the five-day calendar and the rural districts for the 4-day calendar. We're not comparing apples to apples here, folks. The generally that report I found very lackluster and it would not stand the ground in the banking industry that I came a part of in analyzement. So, let me tell you what I like about the
0074-day calendar. First of all, with the 4-day calendar, we get so much instruction time before the STAR test. We have all this time to prepare my students for the STAR. We start in July. Those additional structural days is essential for each of us teachers teaching STAR to get these students ready to take the test. Second of all, we lose so many days on good instruction during our Fridays at the high school based upon the calendar as we know with the band, the football, all the programs. With the calendar as it sets, that helps the current schedule allows me to have personal instruction on the Fridays with my students. Okay? It gives me that opportunity to teach them, some of them oneonone, and it gives them time. Many of y'all will ask, "Well, why does that
008matter?" A lot of those students only can ride the bus. They can't get there before and after school. Friday's the only time that I can give them that instruction, and I'm going to lose this a lot of students that I've helped this year and last year. Third, next, the bottom line is that I need again as many instructional days for SAR. Data shows that my results personally have gone up. When I came here, I taught two months and my personal scores were 77% biology star pass. Next year, this past year, with a 4-day calendar, I was at 84%. That has nothing to do with the calendar, folks. The calendar helped me. It did not hurt me. Please reconsider that option. The last thing I have a lot of people tell me is that this calendar
009going to a fiveday, we can get more students come in. We're going to get them there. We're going to get them there. We're losing them on Friday because not everybody's showing up. The people that aren't showing up aren't showing up on the other four days, folks. That's the honest truth. They're not showing up. If I put I now to put if I had a barn and four buckets of water in it, a horse isn't drinking it into four buckets, putting a fit bucket in the barn is not going to get that horse to drink the water. That's not the solution. Giving us another day during the week. We got to find better solutions to fix the problem. What are the solutions? The biggest problem we have that I personally have is the phones in the
010schools. The phones in the schools are the biggest problem. I will conclude with I will conclude with also that the basically the structure the schools need to have more structure. Lastly, if we love our students, if we care about them, we will do what it takes, we will do the hard work, we will make the decisions to really make effective difference in the schools. I promise you, I'm doing it. I hope that we all do it together. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Next. And it's a reference to the Can you hear me? No. Okay. Um, I just wanted to come back because evidently at the last meeting I had left and I think Mr. got CA wanted to ask me some questions about something I had said and there was a misinterpretation of that. Um
011what I had said was that I felt that the reason that the scores went down is because we had hired some instructional coaches that weren't very well um like they really didn't know what they were doing and they were telling veteran teachers what to do and they were being told the ITC teachers I mean at that time were being told this is not going to work. Our kids are not going to pass doing this and they were forced to do it. Those people are now gone thankfully. But that was one of the main reasons why the scores went down because the teachers were being forced to use curriculum that was not going to address the star. Hopefully now because those people have left and we've got really good ITC people now that we we're hoping
012to see the scores go up. Okay. So I just wanted to address that story. I don't know if you had anything else for him, but that I just wanted because that came back to me and I said, "Okay, let me address it." The next thing I wanted to address real quick is that y'all are saying that kids don't come to Blue Friday. Here's my I personally I know our school we have a little QR code that the kids do, but I personally do my own. Okay? And I just want you to see how many pages and pages and pages that go through here. And it's not um just for making of hours. This last one because the kids know we only have a few more black Fridays left. They're coming in for the hours. But
013if you go through, and I wish I would have made copies of this so I could show you this, but look at how many pages here of all the students that come to my blue Friday, come get the extra work, and especially the athletes, the ones that miss because they're out on the field. Okay? So, I just wanted to make that. And the last thing I wanted to address that I was very disappointed because I went back and looked at that the last meeting that there's a couple of people that want to open your eyes to reconsider putting out there to all the public teachers, students, um parents to open it up to let us decide whether we want a 4 and a half day or a fiveday. You guys have kind of shut it
014down and you're making the decision for us and I don't think that's very fair. you've closed your eyes on it. You're you're not leaving it open and you're not letting the people decide between the four and a half and five. I think that's not right on this board. I think you should let everybody decide and whatever happen happens. If the five wins, five wins. The four and a half wins, let the four and a half win. But you need to let everybody make that decision, not just you all because that's not very fair. Do you have any questions before I because I don't want to. All right. Well, I thank you for your time. I just wanted to come back and address those issues. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Anyone else? This is Elizabeth and
015it's a reference to the Is that a good height for you? Hello. Hello, Paula. Garcia, I guess. Do you do all three? Yeah. Okay. Dr. Paul Garcia, welcome. Um, uh, hello afternoon board. I am here for the calendar. Not even a parent, but I think about if my kid comes back, what would I like my kid um to be in as far as an environment in school? I really would like him to come back his freshman year. Um, there are some things that the teachers here that were made very good points. Um, I do have to disagree with two of them. One, I forgot what it was already. But um we elected you in a position to make good choices. Um I don't believe there should be any kind of um poll, public poll. Uh
016and I know that Japa asked for that. I believe last time you guys were here talking about the calendar, you asked for community input. I don't know if that was for that or the superintendent. can't remember which one, but I'm going to disagree with that because we we hired you guys to think for us. You're supposed to be available to us. You have an email, you have a phone number, and if the community or teachers or anyone's concerned, they need to contact you. I don't believe that the people taking the poll, the majority, let's just call it 90%. Know exactly what type of information you guys should be looking at when considering how you run your district because you guys have the scores. You guys see the taper report. They don't understand how to to
017to swallow that information. Okay. like the teachers, principles. Yeah. But you know, just Sally Sue as a as a mother doesn't know what you guys are looking at. Um, my personal opinion is I do not think the 4-day calendar is working for certain populations. Have you guys seen the Tarper report? You should see it and look at it. The high school did better with a 4.5. I'm not sure if it was leadership or what kind of curriculum they had in place or whether the teenagers actually like the idea, but it's not working for preK to grade 8. And you can see that in your target report, you know, not not everything's good for everybody else. And I think you need to look at that. And I think going from a 4.5 and saying I want
018five because this isn't working is silly too because it wasn't working under the fiveday calendar either. So I think you guys need to pump the brakes here. Have yourself a nice little board meeting workshop next week. Have some community input in here in a workshop. open communication with everyone's in the room and you need to sit down and look at your target reports. That's telling. I don't know a tea allows, you know, half of our students to do one schedule and the other half to do another, but that's maybe something to consider or even ask if that's even possible. Another thing is if you do consider a five-day calendar or not, I seriously think you guys need to look into block scheduling for middle and high school. And I believe that the elementary schools need
019to be aligned that way those resources are available on campus for that specific grade. No one's running around with a chip with their head cut off about what's going on at prek right now in fifth fourth grade. Also, in high school, if you do block scheduling, we only have four periods. Passing period, it would be a lot easier. Kids won't complain about using the restroom on time. Not only that, if you fail, let's say, algebra 1 as a freshman in your in your fall semester, you can go ahead and take that right away in the spring and still pass. And you don't have eight different types of homework each night from each class. You only have four. I' I've done both traditional and block. And blocks a whole lot easier. Grades went up. people paid
020attention because you know in class you got like what five seven minutes in the beginning of class and the end of class to get your class together. That's waste of time right there. So type in Clay on their regular schedule you only got about 38 minutes of class. So I I would hope that you guys say at the table tonight and really think about this sometime next week in a workshop about the right thing to do because you go back to a fiveday calendar, you're in the same boat just to call it a different name. Thank you very much for your time. Thank you, Mrs. Anyone else? Mrs. Pettis. No, sir. Thank you. Okay, let's go to item six, new business. Um we go to 6A discussion and possible action regarding our out of state
021travel HM King High School JOTC Lieutenant James Trio and Sergeant Carlos Kamacho. And this can be found in your board on pages 3 to six. Good evening Lieutenant Color. Sar Kamasha couldn't make it. We're getting prepared for our awards ceremony. Uh we're requesting out of state travel to Disney. Uh we have about eight cadetses and uh we have uh my wife as a chaperon and myself and uh it's going to be funded by ROC ourselves. We got the money. It's going to be about $7,000. It's not nothing's coming out of this, you know, the school. It's coming out of our student activity account. The kids um had end of year requirements. Out of a hundred, only eight made it. And we're just requesting the outstate out of state travel tonight. Thank you, sir. Any questions
022from the board? Comments. Okay. Uh, do I have a motion to approve the HM King High JLTC trip to Orlando, Florida? Moved by Mr. Chapa. Second. Second by Mr. David Garcia. All in favor? All opposed. The motion passes 5. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it. Thank you. Thank you. Okay, next item. Six B discussion and possible action regarding donation from the American Heart Association CPR kits to Kingsville. Dr. Pittz, thank you. Um, Mr. Pettis, uh, Dr. for Damron Garcia. Members of the board, we have a donation from um from the American Heart Association. We have a donation from the American Hearts Association for CPR Kids. And I would like to introduce the members here from the American Heart Association, Sonia Marines, Melissa Deagarsa, and Amy Snell Canerberry. Please come on up. Hello. Hello. Okay. Hi. Thank
023you guys all for allowing us to come. I'm Sonia Marine and I work for the American Heart Association. And so what I do with the American Heart Association is youth engagement. So, for the last six years, I've had the pleasure, honor to work with the schools of Kingsville ISD. Um, specifically, I work more with the elementary schools and the middle schools. Um, we bring the program that's called Kids Heart Challenge, which used to be called Jump Rope for Heart, which most people remember. I always get a lot of nods when I say jump rope for heart. Um, so it is it's evolved through the years. So, kids heart challenge is still about exercising. is still about kids learning about their heart, but it's more whole child. As our schools are trying to address health on
024all levels, we're trying to meet them there and be a true partner. So, we talk about things like exercise, but also things like staying away from tobacco and getting enough sleep and being a good leader. Um, but we also are really focused on teaching our communities handsonly CPR. So, this used to be something that was only for doctors and nurses, and that shows in our communities because heart disease remains the number one killer of all Americans. However, we have a community of bystanders. People do not act when there's a cardiac event. About 80% of the time, people don't get involved because they think someone else is or they think that they're not a doctor. So students as young as four can learn the steps to handsonly CPR. Kids as young as nine can administer handsonly
025CPR. So this is not the certification that most people get. Um sometimes that's only a portion of people in a school. Sometimes it's one person, sometimes it's two. So we know that cardiac events unfortunately have a very high occurrence of happening. So, Corpus Christiey's American Heart Association has actually been chosen as a pilot for a program that's called Nation of Lifesavers. And what we are trying to do is change those statistics is start to change the culture so that our kids and our families know what to do. That at least one person in every household knows the steps. Even a child when the adults are running around and freaking out, not knowing what to do, a child can identify, I know what to do. Mom, you're supposed to call 911. You're supposed to push fast
026and hard. I'm going to sing the Baby Shark song. So, we're trying to bring all of this to our schools because we know that we can address so many that way. So, these CPR kits are something that we actually learned through a nurse conference that uh we were told that this Kingsville would greatly benefit. So, it used to be something that CPR kits were only used, you know, to train teachers or coaches or seniors when they were graduating. So, we really want to challenge you to use these in a different way. This can be used to train parents. It could be used to train cafeteria workers. It could be used to train our students. If it's through PE, if it's through health class, if it's through anything, imagine if kids were practicing at the age
027of four and then they were practicing when they're in middle school and then they were getting certified when they were seniors. That's real impact. That's real sustainable change. Uh when I talk to kids all the time, I tell them that us adults are not very good at our health and that we want better for them. We want them to know what to do. We want them to act. We want them to to use health as something that not to fix when it's broken, but to get healthy from the beginning. So, we have um many of these kits, but I'm going to introduce my colleague Amy who works with um local corporations and she was able to get some donors to put these in the schools and talk to you a little bit more about that.
028Thank you so much for having us. I'm Amy Canterbury. I'm the development director for our Heart of Corpus Christi campaign. You might have heard of the Heartball, but that's how these kits were made possible. I just want to recognize the donors uh very quickly. Uh Clayberg Bank, Texas&M University, Kingsville, uh American Steel Supply, Fulton Construction, the Adler family have made these kits possible. We have 115 to give to you to disperse out to all the schools in Kingsville ISD. These kits can be used numerous times if you take good care of them. They actually have an inflatable mannequin inside and they can be used to train hundreds of parents, students, volunteers, PTO members, every staff member you have on site. So, just want to give a shout out to those donors for stepping up and
029donating to our campaigns so that we can make this local mission work possible. A lot of people think that we just do national work, but we're in our community every day with the youth programs, with Melissa as our community impact director, and with us fundraising to make sure things like this happen. So, thank you for allowing us to to bring these to Kingsville ISD. And now I'll turn it over to Melissa Dler, our community impact director. Thank you, Amy. Thank you, everyone. So, my part is pretty simple. I get to, as Amy said, she's the fundraiser. She works for the heart ball and raises funds and got all these funds donated for these wonderful kits that we're delivering to you guys today. But my job is to also be able to let you know that
030we have a resource called a cardiac emergency response plan. Every year 23,000 students or children have a cardiac arrest. Most of the time they're in school. They spend most of their day in school. So the likelihood of them having one, if they have one, having it at school is pretty we've heard of several that have happened here recently and locally. There was a gentleman playing baseball and he collided with another player and he went into cardiac arrest. So, we have a plan, a template. It's called a cardiac emergency response plan and it lays everything out much the same as a fire drill test. So, what we would like to do is partner with Kingsville ISD. I have sent it to the nurse, but letting you guys know about it and and getting with the right
031people to make the right decisions. We'd love to be able to implement this plan for Kingsville ISD. It is a district-wide plan. it is for all the campuses to be able to have this plan in place and it simply lays out all the steps needed and all the uh evidence-based practices needed to be able to have a successful cardiac arrest. Thank you. [Applause] Can we get some of you to come up? Yeah. Yes. We would love that so much. Our donors would love to see that to see that they're making a difference. flower. Three, two, one. Thank you. Thank you so much everyone. Thank you. Having too much fun. Thank you so much. We really appreciate the donation. Uh you never know what may may save a life one day to continue. Uh let's see.
032Do I have a motion to approve the donation from the American Heart Association for KD? So moved. Moved by Mr. Garcia. Second. Second by Miss Alenzas. All in favor? All oppose. The motion passes 5-0. Again, thank you very much. Thank you. Next item 6 C discussion and possible action regarding regarding the LSO and strong foundations planning SFP and strong foundations implementation SFI grants. Mrs. Rebecca Perkins and Mrs. Jennifer Flowers and Dr. on my Oh, sorry. This is Dr. Yes. That's okay. We can hold on to that because the girls are going to help. Okay. So, um Mr. Pettis, Dr. Dr. Gama Garcia, members of the board, first before I begin to present, I would like to uh share that we um want to celebrate the fact that we have received several grants for our district.
033We are almost at over a million dollars um for next school year. So that's a celebration within. So I just wanted to share that under under I it's not talking. Okay. Under Dr. Resinizes leadership we received that much money. So I just wanted to share that with you all. Uh we we are going to present on the strong foundations planning grant as well as the strong foundations implementation grant. Um one was already shared with you all but we wanted to share with it share it again with you because I don't know why it keeps doing that. You got to talk. I'm sorry. Um but we're try um we wanted to share the fact that um we do need some action of Dr. Nice. Hold on. You've got a couple of mine. Okay, there you go.
034Okay. I apologize. Um now we wanted to share that we do have an action item as well because we do have a deadline of May 16th to upload um the provider information that has been selected. And so the ladies, Miss Flowers and Miss Perkins will be sharing the information with you all. Okay. So I just wanted to make clear that deadline that's coming in. Okay. I'm not that tall. Good evening. It's a pleasure to see each and every one of you again this evening. I am Rebecca Perkins. I will be presenting on the SFP or the strong foundations planning grant that is focused in literacy. As you all know that we were all awarded the district was awarded $140,000 and there was a time when we talked about what it was focused on. We're going
035to look at literacy programs within the district, how we can best support our teachers using uh professional development, implementing some strategies that will promote better reading and writing proficiency starting from preK all the way through 12th grade. The main purpose of the SFP is to It's okay. is to make sure that we have what our kids need to be successful in the upcoming year and beyond. The purpose of tonight is to focus on the 50% portion, the allocation that is required of us for the grant. We're required to pay a provider TEA selected from a TEA selected list and that's what we have done. Uh on April 25th, there was a committee that was created uh based on the campus nominations. A letter was issued for those nominees. They accepted and then they attended. At
036this attendance, we reviewed two separate providers which was Mo Casey and ESC2. We were, excuse me, each one was provided a vendor's list rubric uh in which for them to kind of see what they liked and what they didn't like based on criteria. After that was done, it was compiled into this format which Dr. Pittz was very kind to help me with. And then from there, we uh input the data and got a percentage and the percentage that went out was for most Casey. So tonight, what we were asking for you to do is to um allow us to move forward with that committee decision. And now, Miss Flowers. Good evening. Uh just to reiterate, on April 22nd, we were awarded the um SFI grant for MAC. So that is that implementation grant that uh
037Dr. Baytos was talking about. Um despite the fact that we were only awarded it on April 22nd, we do still have that May 16th deadline. So we also had to select a provider. Um the grant funds are designed to support the adoption of Blue Bonnet learning mathematics materials and the implementation of Blue Bonnet learning at eligible title one federally school improvement designated campuses. Um, and you can see up there our elementary schools that would qualify our Harvey and Harold and our secondary school is Gillette that would qualify for these funds. Our total award amount is $445,000. Uh, the elementary schools would get $245,000 and secondary Gillette would get 200,000. Um, in accordance with the grant requirements, Kingsville ISD must contract with a provider from the TEA's pre-approved list. As Miss Perkins said as well, um
03850% of those funds do have to go to that one provider. Um, and that is our action item for today that we are asking of y'all to approve. Um, the the provider that we selected, uh, our CNI team sat through some meetings with three different providers. Um we we met with them um we evaluated their pitch and uh we decided to go with uh Carnegie Learning. So that is what we are asking of you today to approve uh that we spend the 50% of the grant funds on uh that one provider Carnegie Learning. So we recommend the board of trustees approve the selection and funding of TEA approved provider for lasso3 strong foundations planning grant moch Casey administration also recommends the board of trustees approve the selection and funding of TEA approved provider for the
039last three strong foundations implementation grant Carnegie Learning. Just to pro to provide a little bit of clarification. Um this is all grant funded but both the vendors are over 50,000 still does require board approval. Any questions from the board? So Dr. Pittz, you're saying that this is 100% grant funding. That's correct. And I heard I thought I heard $50,000 a match. Half of the grant has to go to uh their partner, their their provider. Um the rest of the grant can be used for other things, but at least 50% of the grant has to go to the provider. Does it does those 50,000 come from us or it comes from the grant? That comes from the grant itself. Second thing, do we have why is it only Harvey and Harold? What about Pettis? Harvey and
040Harold were the ones selected because they are uh tip campuses. Now Pettis will also we will utilize the same materials for Pettis. Um local funding will supply or supplement that program but any of the trainings that we have they are willing to include Pettis Elementary for the trainings. So really the fact that we have two campuses already participating as well as Gillette Carnegie said they are willing to allow the Pettis staff to also join us for the trainings. In terms of purchasing the materials they are also included in the purchase of the materials. TEA uh identifies our targeted improvement campuses. So so we don't have a choice in that. Good question. Uh you have here mo can hear me? Yes sir. Mo KC EC2. Was there another third or fourth vendor? Why just two options
041there at at that time those were the only two that were pursuing us? We and when I say pursuing us several vendors were trying to get a hold of us and basically the two that pursued us the most was ESC2 and Mo Casey. And so Moch Casey can I'm a little confused with the Carnegie learning. Carnegie learning. Yes. So Carnegie learning is for math. Uh Mo Casey is going to help us with literacy and the literacy grant is only for planning purposes. U the um math grant is for implementation and utilization of blue learning. So it is different and they will be assisting us. They will be providing professional development for um the use of blue bonnet uh for Carnegie will more Casey will be helping us to develop a framework for literacy um so
042that um districtwide we can all be on the same page in terms of which way which direction are we heading in terms of literacy. So are they going to be like a grant administrator? Are they going to come and audit or what are their respons? Actually, they're here to assist us in uh and guide us in submission of information that is due to TEA as well as provide um step development training. Uh for example, for the literacy grant, Arby's training is a required training that we have to attend in July. And so they recommend that the committee members attend uh and have RB's training. And um so so basically they're here for the whole year to help us uh create that great work. I I like the free money part of it, but I want
043to get Dr. Garcia out here to see maybe some thoughts about what you think, what you what have you what you've heard here. Give you some little bit of feedback if you can. I I think that going through a process where you evaluate the vendors is always smart. So I appreciate the creation of the rubric. I'm very familiar with Carne learning for math. They're actually very strong. I'm less familiar with Casey, but one of the things that I know about curriculum instruction and it really comes to implementation and fidelity of implementation. So I'm more excited about what happens afterwards, right? once they create the timeline for when all the deliverables are going to happen and then along with the markers like how are we knowing that we're on the track to success uh and that
044we're being successful as the program becomes implemented. So those are really for me the strong indicators. I'm really also thinking of you say this were the ones that we're pursuing as agent the only wondering that I have if there were certain programs that you really wanted because they're very what however it is that you've done your research how do you get them to the table so they take an interest I know that usually big companies prefer the bigger districts because it's easier uh but also I think that there's an opportunity for you for us as a district to decide that these are the certain vendors or partners that we want to work with and how do we get them to the table to collaborate but Carnegie learning strong not as familiar with more Casey but
045it's more it's an implementation uh planning year and I'm more curious to know what happens afterwards. Thank you. Any other questions? Thank you. Thank you. Yes. Do I have a motion to approve the selection and funding of the lasso 3 SFP and SFI grants? Opposed I'm sorry. Uh motion seconded. Second Mr. All in favor? All opposed? Motion carries 5. Continuing with 6D. Discussion and possible action regarding purchases over 50,000. Dr. P. Thank you, Mr. Pettis. This is for the uh replacement of the two package units that are on top of the uh old gym at HMK. Right now, one of them is nonoperational and the second one is operating at probably about half capacity. Um the lowest bid was quantum. Uh the next lowest bid after that was $12,000 more than quantum and then the
046other ones after that. So we are requesting this current one is for $53,000. Um again you see the previous that is what we have previously spent this year to date for quantum. I will take any questions or yes questions. Okay. Thank you Dr. Administration recommends that the board approved the purchases over 50,000. Okay, you've heard the recommendation from administration. Do I have a motion? Moved by Mr. Mirez, seconded by Mr. Chapa. All in favor say I. I. All oppose. Motion carry 52. Okay. Item 16, discussion and possible action regarding the CASD instructional calendar for the 2025 2026 school year. Parentheses 5A. Mrs. Tanya Williams. Good evening members of the board. Dr. Gama Garcia. We do have a presentation up for you um to review as we go through the calendars that we are going to
047present. On our first slide, you will see the members of our DEIC committee and the subcommittees in which they are a part of. Next slide. We do have our timeline for the 2526 calendar planning and decision-making process. On January 15th, the DEIC met to discuss, review, and revise calendar drafts and propose options to be surveyed. February 21st, a staff and student survey link was emailed internally to all staff and teachers. March 12th, the DEIC reviewed and discussed the results of the surveys. March 25th, the winning calendar of those surveys was presented to the board. It was then requested to present two five-day calendar options. On April the 16th, two five-day calendar options were presented to the board. It was then requested to take them back to DEIC for discussion and recommendation. April 23rd, DEIC reviewed
048and discussed and made recommendations to revise draft two of the two original 5-day calendar options. Um, Miss Flowers is going to go ahead and pass out some copies of the calendars um in which we use to develop the template and to revise um on the five-day calendars. And then today, May 6, we are presenting a revised five-day draft 2 instructional calendar for the 2526 school year for board review and possible approval. Before I continue, I'll make sure everybody has their copies first. So, when we were first asked to draft a five-day calendar option, what we did was we went back to our 2022 2023 school year. That was the last school year in which we had a five-day calendar implemented and we used that as a template to draft our two five-day calendar options. That
049traditional calendar started on August 22nd and had an end date of June 2nd. first fiveday calendar option which on your copies um is titled original I believe I'm sorry that is draft one titled on the copies that you have my apologies with draft one that had a start date of August 25th and an end date of May 29th and it gave 60,450 instructional minutes prior to STAR. It also frontloaded our PD and our work days at the beginning of the school year. Calendar draft two has a start date of August 19th and end date of May 22nd. It includes 62,310 instructional minutes prior to STAR. And it also frontloads our PD and our work days for the beginning of the school year. calendar option two revised is the one that was taken back to DEIC.
050That one has a start date of August the 11th, an end date of May 22nd. It includes 63,240 minutes of instructional minutes prior to STAR. It frontloads PD and work days at the beginning of the school year. And we were also able to include any recommendations or suggestions that we had received um including having a teacher workday after a Christmas break or long break such as those. And before we end the presentation, we would like to thank the DEIC committee members and everyone else who participated in the calendar planning process. At this time, we are recommending the revised 5-day instructional calendar for the 2025 2026 school year. Are there any questions? Just one comment. We still were able to get in six wellness days, correct? Yes, sir. There's at least um one Friday off a
051month. Thank you. Yes, sir. I I have uh some comments for this. I'm sorry. For these five day calendars that have been presented, was there a survey done? There was not a survey. It was taken back to DEIC. DEIC made recommendations. We voted on those and that was and then I also understand because I got it. There was a letter from DIC. It was written asking that the original 4 4.5 day instructional day calendar be reinstated service as as an option for the for it to go alongside the proposed fiveday calendar. So I just want to let the board know and I know the board saw the letter also and and I'm going to be totally honest. I can't support the the calendar, the fiveday calendar. It's it's really been I I don't know. It
052hasn't been handled correctly. No blame to no one. But this and we we need a calendar already. Master schedules need to be done. Students need to know when school's going to start and end and so forth. But I just, you know, I can't support the the fiveday calendar. Thank you. Any other comments or questions? Dr. Fed on Okay. Um, for me, a couple of things that I know about education when I look at high performing districts, um, is that I've never seen a high performing district that does not have a fiveday schedule. And I know there's data, but historically that does not happen. When I think back of how the charter movement started and the reason so many people are going to charters, the charter movement started on the promise that the school year was
053going to be longer and the school day was going to be longer because the students that they were targeting uh stu title one students, right, low-inccome communities was that when students are at home, they're really just wasting time. there's really they're not engaging with academics, they're not engaging with curriculum, they don't parents are working. I grew up in a in a household where my parents work two or three jobs and school it becomes a safe heaven for kids. Uh knowing now that we're in in a different type of competition. We're in a competition of attention now. So for me, I I just have a lot of questions like professional development. I know that in education we like professional development, but we know there's also research that says that we only retain less than 10% of
054anything that we hear. So with that many days of professional development, like if you think about it, you're only going to retain maybe a day because your brain can only pay so much. So I'm wondering what are we going to be doing during those days, right? And how are we going to use those days? Um and why are they not spread out more during the the week or during the calendar year? I also think that um that we just also need to be mindful of community and businesses, right? Uh when I think of student attainment, it has a direct correlation to workforce. That's another thing that I know. If our students are not performing, if they're not meeting standards, if they're not spending time in school, then what are they doing? What are they learning?
055And how is that going to be connected to the workforce? uh and what our business community, our families, everybody works, everybody has something to do. So I I in terms of the details of the calendars, I'm not I would have to understand them. They're celebrations and they're things that are unique to the community. But for me, a strong preference has always been the five day school week. I do think that we need to make accommodations in terms of the start and end time. uh in term older kids need to start later because they I have a 16-year-old that has to move early. Uh also what do we know about the work schedules when work ends connected to transportation when we can run buses. So for me it's more thinking out holistically what do we want?
056What do we aim to do? What do we want to be true for the community? But if you're asking me what is my pre preference? My preference is a five day school week. being mindful of things that the community cares about and also thinking of how do we span teacher professional development to make it impactful to make it meaningful and to ensure that they're ready for the first day of school having planned out what is going to happen the first six weeks because that time really matters. Any other comments or questions? Yes. Um the last meeting uh I had um made a motion and we was seconded that we get feedback from students, teachers and parents. The same survey feedback that was gathered for the 4-day calendar. I'm not sure why we didn't get that.
057We as a board get to set policy. That is one of our responsibilities is not so I don't know why that's not what we're presenting here today but it's it's kind of and trying not to be insulted here but we did ask for that did we not and it was approved we voted for that okay so so DIC um decided to recommend one these three calendars and and and that's that's fine But uh just so you know that was that was our that's we have that right as a board and just so you know that okay I'm to add to Mr. that that was something we requested. Again, I'm repeating what he said, but for some reason it went to the DIC, but didn't go beyond that. As far as the five day, for whatever
058reason, I don't have any idea why I'm at a loss, too. And and just to to verify, um I voted no on that motion, and I just want to let that be known. Any other questions, concerns? Is there a motion? What's the motion? One of the board members make the motion. Okay. I make the motion that we accept the uh fiveday calendar that was presented to us by motion made by uh Mr. David Garcia. Do I have a second? I'll second by just to clarify that draft. That's correct. That is correct. It's draft revised. But where does it say revised on your copy? It just says draft two 5day. The other one says draft two 5day original. Okay. So, will that work? Mr. Maddox, his motion. Yes, sir. Thank Well, let's do a roll call
059vote, please. Mr. Mirez, yes. Mr. Chapa, yes. Mr. Garcia, yes. Miss Alenas, yes. And I vote no. Mr. Jacob, the motion passes 41. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Item seven, enter into close session. The board will enter into close session accordance with the Texas Open Meeting Act, Texas Government Code 55.071 and 551.074. To deliberate, consider the following. 7A consider and deliberate regarding the renewal of term contracts for the positions of assistant for curriculum instruction director of special ed and 504 and attendance compliance officer for the 2025 2026 school year. 7B and consider and deliberate regarding the interim superintendent counter offer and 7C consultation with legal regarding legal and personnel matters. No action will be taken until we return to open session. We are entering close session at 6:28 p.m. Item 8A, return to open
060session. We now return to open session and take necessary action on matters which the board may discuss in open session upon which action may be taken. We will return to open session at 7:38. Item 8 A, no action will be taken. Item 8B, no action will be taken. Item 8 C, I make the motion to uh approve as discussed in close session. Second. Second by Misha Chapa. All in favor? I I All oppose. Motion passes 5 Z. This meeting if there no be no further action to to hear a motion to adjurnn. I hear a motion to adjurnn. So moved by Mr. Velz. Second chapa. No further discussion. We [Music] Just we're