001members. Ro call somebody's and I don't have a list. So, somebody has to check. Okay, thank you. Okay, we have a quorum. Lisa, please take it away with the Texas Academic Performance Report. >> All right. Good afternoon, Mr. President, esteemed board members, Dr. Ball, and members of the Southwest ISD community. Today, we're going to have our public hearing on our district annual report. This is a report that's required uh once we receive our final report from TEA for the 2425 school year. So, there are actually eight sections to this public hearing that we'll be discussing. The first part is the 2425 Texas academic performance report commonly known as the taper. And that is produced for the district and for each campus in the district. Once we finish talking about the taper, we'll move on to
002the PE's financial standard report, district accreditation status, campus performance objectives, a report on violent or crim criminal incidents on campuses, our student performance in post-secondary institutions, and then progress toward the board adopted HB3 goals. And all of the reports that we're discussing this evening can be found on the district website at the bit.ly link that's on the web p on this PowerPoint. So, let's get started with the Texas academic performance report or taper. So, TEA compiles this report for the district and every campus and they use two pieces of data for that. They use our data from our PE uh student information system and student assessment data and it is published as a PDF and available for the public and it includes a wide range of information on the performance performance of students at the
003district level and then also at each campus and there's one available for every campus in the entire state and they disagregate the data in a number of ways by student groups including ethnicity and so economic status. and it gives a extensive information on district staff programs and student demographics. So when you look at the the taper report, it starts off with the accountability rating for 2025. That's the A throughF rating and it is reported for the district and for each campus on their individual taper. Then on the district's taper, there is the 2025 special education determination status. And also on the district taper if the the arms services vocational aptitude battery test designation is on there. It's only there if the district does not uh provide that test opportunity for our students. And Southwest ISD
004does provide that testing opportunity. So it will not appear on the district taper. And then any designations that were earned by the campus or the district are also on that front cover. Once you go beyond the cover, you have star performance and it's reported for two years. So we have the performance for 2025 and 2024 broken down at the three different performance rates approaches and above meets and above and masters. And that's broken out for each assessment. And that also includes any SAT or ACT testers because if a student is an accelerated tester then their SA SAT or ACT performance is included. is broken out for all grades all subjects and then all grades by subject and then by the enrolled grade by at the meets or above for reading and math for just 3
005through eight then 3 through eight plus EOCC's and then uh just reading all all levels and just math all levels. Once you go past those pages, then you see school progress and it's again reported for two years 25 and 24 and you have fur growth reported by grade and subject for reading, language, arts and math. And then accelerated learning. These are our students that are under the 14 house 1416 performance. So these are students that had failed the previous year and how they are performing in 20 2025 broken out by reading language arts and math. Please note that for accountability through the A throughF system they actually combine these two numbers together for our uh academic growth domain 2A but that is not reported in the taper and taper we keep them separated. Once we
006go beyond that, then we have a breakdown for our B uh bilingual education students and our students served through ESL. So there is a breakdown how each different program performed depending on how the student is uh serviced and you have the star performance for all subjects and then all grades for RELA, all grades for math, all grades for science and all grades for social studies based on which program the students are participating in. Then you have the annual growth for those students in both reading and math and all subjects. And then their accelerated learning for any 14 15 students that are served by the bilingual education program. Once we are past all the performance then we have the participation. So we have can see how the district or the campus participated in the assessment. So
007you have how many were included in accountability, how many were not included in accountability because they were mobile. So they were not present on snapshot date in October. And how many were not included in accountability for an other code? Perhaps they were absent or some other thing happened that they were not able to be scored. and then any exclusions. And then they break that other down to how many were absent and then how many had that other code. And it's reported for all tests by subject area. And also for the accelerated testers, those high school students that needed their SAT or ACT to meet federal testing requirements. The next section of the report talks about attendance, graduation, and dropout rates. So we have our attendance rate, our chronic absent absenteeism, our dropout great rate for
008seven and eight, and our dropout rate for grades 9 through 12, our four, five, and sixyear graduation rates and our federal graduation rate. And then graduation rate plans, so which plan the students graduated under uh because there are a variety of ways that they could achieve that diploma. And then we have a graduation profile. So we can see our total graduates and broken out by ethnicity, graduation type, and any special programs that were served uh that serve those students. The next part of the taper talks about college, career, and military readiness. So we have our percent of CCMR graduates and then broken out by whether they were college ready or career ready. and then which indicators that they may have achieved because you can achieve more than one indicator. So we have the percentages that
009achieve that CCMR ready indicator through TSIA results. That's SAT, ACT or some other tests and perhaps AP or IB or SAT or ACT. And then other post-secondary indicators such as dual credit. And then our graduates that are were enrolled in an institute of higher education while they were still enrolled in high school. And then graduates that completed one year without uh enrollment in a developing education course in the higher ed. The next part of the taper talks about student information. So we have a lot of different pieces of information enrollment by grade level by ethnicity by other indicators um by disabilities by their primary eligibility category for that disability graduation information retention rates class size mobility and student attrition. Then we talk about staff information. So we have our staff information, our total staff, our
010staff by classification, by ethnicity and gender, by highest degree held and years of experience. And then with the experience of campus leadership, staff salary and teacher turnover rate information. And finally, there is the program information where we have student enrollment by program and teachers by program and how the based on the population that they serve. So all of those are the pieces that you find in the taper. The next part of the public hearing is the PE's financial standards report. So I'm going to ask Mr. Scott Stevens to come up and talk to you about that. >> Good evening school board members. Dr. B. Um section does discuss the financial reports. Um and it is from the 23 24 school year. So it's typically a year behind. it lags behind on the 2425 paper report.
011So with that being said, we have the uh revenues from that time period being 160,384,559. Our expenditures came in at $169,493 and $137 with our dispersements being $170,81,92. Our dispersements are slightly um higher than our expenditures in this report based on our uh subtract out the BCAD which is the Bear County Appraisal District payment of that we do every year and that's about almost $590,000. So, and the fund balance at that time period was 73,53,52 and that left us with within our um allowable monthly fund balance expenditures. So, any questions? on those items. All righty. >> All right. The next section of the public hearing is to talk about the district accreditation status and is the status for 2324 is our most current accreditation status. Every year TEA assigns an accreditation status to every district
012in the state. It can be accredited, accredited, born, accredited, probation or uh not accredited revoked. And they look at our academic ratings, our financial ratings, our data integrity, and any program deficiencies that are identified through the results driven accountability uh program. So they assigned our accreditation for the 2324 school year in September of 2025 because uh there was a delay because of the litigation that was ongoing around ratings and they needed those ratings to be able to determine accreditation. We can expect that we'll find out our accreditation for 2425 sometime in the spring of 26. But for 2425 since that uh our most recent accreditation is for school year 23 24 and our accreditation status is accredited. Next section of the report is our campus performance objectives. Every campus has developed and is implementing a
013campus improvement plan as required by uh Texas education code. It includes performance objectives which are approved by the board and uh it's based on data analysis and needs assessments including data reported in the annual taper reports. Periodically, each campus does review their progress toward their objectives and all the updated CIPs for the 2425 school year, showing both the objectives and their progress are posted on the district's website and are available for review at the district central office or at the campus that the students uh attend. Next section is our report on violent and criminal incidents. So, I'm ask going to ask Mary Lou Hernandez to step forward. Good evening board members. Dr. Wall. Um, as part of the annual report, we're required to present on violent or criminal offenses that occurred on each campus for
014the 2024 2025 school year. The report includes uh the number, rate, and type of violent or criminal um incidents that occurred at on each campus. It also outlines the district's violence prevention and intervention policies and procedures as well as any eval evaluation findings related to safe and drug uh free schools if there were any. Uh the full report is available for public view at the district central office and at each campus. For the 2024 2025 school year, we had a total of three uh violent or criminal incidents. one for possession of a firearm at one of our middle school campuses and two for serious misbehavior while placed at our district alternative education program. At this time, there were no findings that would warrant any Southwest ISD campus to be identified as an unsafe school. Any
015questions? >> Yes, ma'am. I don't I only see two. >> We have two >> two for serious misbehavior and one for possession of a firearm. Yes, you are. You are correct. Um I apologize for that error. So um we will we will fix that. Thank you. All right. The next part of our report is a report on student performance in post-secary institutions. So this is a report on how students performed the very first year after they have graduated from our district. And this is compiled by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. The most current report is for the 23 24 high school graduates because they have to actually attend college for a year before they can report out on the performance of these students. So they're looking at how many credit hours and their G
016grades and GPA for fall of 2024, spring of 2025, and summer of 2025 to determine a GPA for our students. And the full report is available on the higher education coordinating board website. But the three high schools for Southwest ISD, we have uh the data there that's in the report. You can see how many students uh graduated from Southwest from CAST STEM and went straight into a 4-year Texas public university or a two-year Texas public college. How many went to a Texas independent college or a university? how many were not trackable, how many were not found, and then out of the total number of graduates. So you have that for CS STEM, Southwest High School, and Southwest Legacies. So you can see the majority of our students do go straight from our high schools into
017two-year colleges. Untraable means that there's not a way for the universities to track them using the data that we have that doesn't match up. and not found students. That can also include students who go out of state because the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board does not get the data from other states to be able to track our graduates uh if they choose to go to some other state to go to college. The next section of the public report is progress of district and campus toward meeting board adopted HB3 goals. It is we are required to include this as part of our annual report. The HP3 goals are the goals for early childhood literacy and early childhood math in the with those proficiency plans that are developed under Texas education code and also our college and
018career med uh military readiness plans and that progress was reported out to the board during the February 17th board meeting. The last section of the report is the taper glossery. There's a lot of data and a lot of different definitions and abbreviations in the taper. So, TA is kind enough to make us a glossery. So, the glossery uh outlines the math that's used and explains some of the terms that are used in the taper report. It is available in both English and in Spanish. And our district's taper will is required to be posted to the district website within two weeks of this meeting. We've actually updated the website so it is currently available for uh viewing and paper copies are also available either at the district central office or at the uh the campus each
019campus in the district and if there's other questions anyone's free to reach out to me and I'll be happy to assist. So do we have any questions at this time? I will now adjourn this meeting at 5:49. We will promptly begin at 6 with our regular meeting. one. If you're not wearing green, please lighten up. No, I'm just kidding. Welcome here. And let's begin with our invocation and pledges of allegiance. >> Oh, I'm sorry. Roll call. This is something new, so please, we're catching up. Roll call, please. Board members, we have a quorum. Okay, now we can go to the invocation of pledges. Please stand if you're able. As we come together this evening, we pause for a moment of reflection and gratitude for the many blessings you have given us. We are thankful for
020the opportunity to serve and to support the students and our district community. With the first day of spring upon us, we are reminded of new beginnings and of the promise you made that all things will be made new. May that promise encourage us in the work that we do each day. Tonight, we lift up a special blessing for our campus teachers of the year. Uh these individuals represent the very best of our calling. We give thanks for their dedication and the care that they give our students. May they feel the impact of what they do even on the days when it's hard to see and bless them with renewed spirit. For all of those who serve in our district, may this new season bring fresh energy and a continued commitment to the students and families
021that we are here to support. May our time together guide be guided by wisdom, respect, and a shared focus on what is best for our community. We ask all these things in your name as through you all things are possible. Amen. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas. One state under God, one and indivisible. >> Thank you, Roger. >> Thank you, Okay, now let's go to the exciting part of the meeting, recognitions. Jenny, >> mic check. Mic check. Okay. Good evening everyone. We will begin with our students of the month. First up is Aeli from Sky Harbor Elementary. She is
022a fifth grader bilingual student at Sky Harbor Elementary who really stands out for her hard work, leadership, and a great character. She's a straight A and GT student who always shows a strong dedication to learning. Adeli also serves as student council vice president and has earned first place in both the spelling B and AAA competitions. She is kind, respectful, and a great role model for others. Her leadership and positive attitude make a big difference in the classroom and across the school. We're lucky to have her as part of the Sky Harbor Elementary family. Congratulations. >> Next up, >> family or the school family or personal family, will you please stand so we can recognize you also? Okay, next up is Nolan Anderson from McNair Middle School. As an honor student, Nolan maintains outstanding academic performance
023while balancing a demanding schedule in athletics and fine arts. He competes on both the football and basketball teams and proudly serves as a member of the UIL varsity bar boys choir, excelling on the field, on the court, and on the stage. In the classroom, Nolan is focused, respectful, and driven to go deeper in his learning. Nolan truly embodies what it means to be in challenger. Nolan, the McNair comm school community is proud of you, believes in you, and knows this is only the beginning of what you will accomplish. Next up is Southwest Legacy High School's Monica Wilson. Monica is currently ranked fourth in her senior class and exemplifies excellence both in academics and athletics. She's a dedicated member of the varsity tennis team, participates in the CT education and training program, and is enrolled in
024dual credit courses. Monica truly represents what it means to be a student athlete. She consistently goes above and beyond in her coursework while maintaining high standards as an athlete. We are incredibly proud to announce that Monica has committed to Texas Lutheran University where she will continue her academic and athletic journey. Congratulations, please stand. We like to congratulate you also. And now for our Southwest ISD rising stars. These students have shown incredible growth making positive changes and improving attendance. We are confident that their hard work will continue to have a positive impact on their entire Southwest ISD experience. First up is Goran Castanetta from Big Country Elementary. One picture. his family. Please stand. Our next rising star is McNair Middle School's Hector Fernandez. Next up is McCull of Middle School's Pao Ramas Compos. Are you watching?
025Next up is Jordan Rodriguez from Southwest Legacy. Jordan is also the captain of the basketball team who led the team to the playoffs. Congratulations, Jordan. Great job. We'd also like to recognize one of our coaches. Southwest High School's coach Vanessa Vill has been named the San Antonio Sports 5A girls all-star game coach for this year's prestigious matchup featuring the top 5A players in the city. This honor presented by San Antonio Sports recognizes her outstanding leadership and the incredible season she led for our program. This award comes after coach Valel guided the Dragons to the first playoff appearance and by district championship in over 10 years, marking a historic milestone for Southwest High School girls basketball. Her impact extends far beyond the court. Under her leadership, Southwest High School girls basketball team earned back-to-back beyond the
026game recognitions for its commitment to serving the community. She's also fully embraced the Warrior co culture as a Warrior coach, and nearly the entire Lady Dragon basketball team has achieved Warrior status over the past two years. Congratulations, And now we're recognizing some of our counselors. The Crest Award given by the Texas School Counselor Association recognizes top school counseling programs and encourages growth. Mrs. Granger received this award and was honored at the state conference in Fort Worth for the amazing work she does with her students. She goes the extra mile by teaching guidance lessons, building strong character, and introducing students to college and career options through visits and fairs. She also does all of this in two languages, making her program a great example of what elementary counseling should look like. Congratulations, family. >> McNair Middle
027School's counseling team also earned the crest award and was recognized at the state conference in Fort Worth. Mr. Sanchez York and Mrs. Roshcha engaged students with creativity, exciting lessons and activities. Their teamwork and strong advocacy make a positive impact on students, teachers, and families. Southwest ISD is proud to celebrate McNair, the first middle school in the district to be recognized by the Texas School Counselor Association. And now for our teachers of the year. We would like to recognize the 2025 2026 Southwest ISD teachers of the year. Their enthusiasm for teaching, love for children, and expertise make them highly respected and admired among their peers and within this great community. We thank them for all they do. And tonight's recognition is just a small token of that appreciation. First up, our campus teachers of the year
028from Big Country Elementary, Jessica Mriquez. Any family members for this individual? You please stand. from Bob Hope Elementary. Irene Moraicio. >> Any family members for Mauricio? from Hidden Cove Steam Academy. April Pena Any family members >> from Indian Creek Elementary, Na Ibara Any family members, please stand. from Creold School of the Arts. Arelis Martinez. family members >> from Sky Harbor Elementary. Elva Calderon family from Spicewood Park Elementary. Amanda Benvitz family from Southwest Elementary, Anelica Luna. from McCull of Middle School. Jessica Gonzalez. from Scobby Middle School. Terry Ben Any family members from Crossroads, Zachary Boyston Any family members from Southwest High School, Casey Haby. Any family members from Southwest Legacy High School, Andrew Spainhower. Sure. And now for our district teacher of the year finalist from Medio Creek Elementary, Christine Gomez. family from Sun Valley Elementary.
029Zuma Vasquez Any family members? McNair Middle School's Karen Monsayz. from Resnik Middle School. Gilbert Sanchez Our 2526 elementary district teacher of the year is Elm Creek Elementary's Estafano Homequist. Any family members? Our 2526 secondary district teacher of the year is CASTM High School's Aiden Apply. Are you bring the family members for these teachers of the Being one of these teachers means that you put in a lot of extra time, means that you sacrificed a lot of hours away from loved ones. So, we just want to say a deep thank you for all the individuals that were honored tonight. We're so proud of our students, but so proud of our teachers, and I want to thank our board because we're able to give a very small token of our appreciation to our Okay, at this time
030we'll take a quick break so those of you that want to leave can leave. It'll be about two minute break and we'll continue. and we'll continue with our agenda. Public general comment, general comments related to closed agenda items. >> Yes, sir. We have one person signed up for citizens to be heard. I'm going to read over the rules of engagement uh for the board meeting. When addressing the audience during the public forum, speaker commentary must adhere to the following. Everyone must model courtesy and respect. Speaker shall not employ profane or threatening language, nor shall they engage in any personal attacks. The public has the right to make critical and harsh remarks. However, the expectation is that the message delivered by the speaker is done so in a constructive manner with a collaborative purpose. Speakers are
031expected to respect the both the decorum of the public meeting and the authority of the board. The board of trustees requests that derogatory inflammatory statements and personal attack from individuals be avoided. Caution should be exercised in publicly attacking specific individuals in accord in accordance accordance with board policy. BD local. The board shall not deliberate or respond to any subject that is not included on the agenda posted with notice of the meeting. Speakers who have signed up to speak on the specific agenda item must focus their own comments on that posted agenda item. We have Amanda Hernandez who signed up to speak for general public comments this evening. Miss Amanda Hernandez, you have three minutes to make your public comments. Can you please come forward? Not all but a lot of the teachers and staff hope
032and wish and pray that Mr. Dundo Ortiz will be the next principle of Bob Hope. Some of the words used to describe him are stead steadfast, reliable, effective communicator. He has integrity. He is professional. And on our campus, he's bilingual. And if you've ever been in a place where you're not understood, our parents and staff absolutely or the parents absolutely adore the fact that he is bilingual and can come to him and explain to them to him their fears, their worries and praise him and celebrate with him the joys of their students. He is genuine in his care and treatment. of staff, student and parents. He is our foundation. He listens without judgment and he shows respect and reacts with kindness and strength. You can go up to him and say, "Hey, I messed up."
033And he'll listen to you and he'll say, "All right, this is what we're going to do." and then he like shares some cheese or he cracks a joke so that you know that he knows that everything's going to be okay. And personally, I was um diabetic and I was crashing and we happened to be having lunch at the same time and ve very calmly, very calmly, he said, "Do I need to call someone?" And I said, "No, I think I'll be fine in a few minutes." And then he was he said, "Okay." But his calmness reassured me that had I not been okay that he would have been there and he would have called 911 and he would have taken care of me and made sure the people around me would have been okay. >>
034Thank you. >> Anyone else? >> Thank you. Consent agenda board members. You've had that before you. Anyone want to pull anything out? Discuss any item hearing hearing? None. Need a motion. >> I move. >> We have a motion and a second that the consent agenda is is approved as presented. Vote now. Motion passes. Items of information. Construction update. >> Thomas. >> Yes, sir. >> Thomas is going to come up and bring up the presenters. We just have two tonight. First, >> Himemenz is here with Marman Mock and Brad James with Joris to go over the Alvarado Elementary update. Uh quickly, you all have seen this first part of the presentation. So, just a quick uh this is how the site is laid out. Obviously, Titan Crossing, Titan Pride Drive, and parking areas and the school
035areas A, B, C, and D. Um the uh first floor plan with classrooms on the upper portion, gym, cafeteria towards the bottom, admin towards the right, and library. And then the second story of the classroom wing. Uh current progress, we're about 83% of the project. Um the exterior um work that's ongoing and in progress, still exterior masonry somewhat uh and metal panels. uh small amounts of rigid insulation. Uh most of the uh metal frame or all of the metal framing and sheathing have been completed and there's windows and glazing uh in progress in areas A and B. On the interior of the building, we have paint laying ceiling grid flooring, tile is ongoing. Uh there's um cabinet work going in and then uh minimal drywall install, minimal MEP work going on and minimal rough ends
036uh finishing up as we get nearer to the completion. Uh this is a photo from a month ago and then this is the current photo. You can kind of see where the exterior of the building is. Uh you're seeing more of the finish is complete, the masonry uh windows being installed, uh the canopies uh are being completed. Uh the parking areas are being completed. And as you this is a photo of the north or east northeast uh face of the building uh from a month ago. And then this next photo, you can see that same face has more masonry completed and again window installation and such is going on. And the canopy uh the main canopy in the front of the building is uh about twothirds of the way complete. And uh this is another
037view still that same that same side of the building. And then as we look into the courtyard, you can see a lot of the masonry is completed in the courtyard. the canopy in the courtyard is is in progress. And then looking here at the bus loop side of the the school, that entire bus loop canopy is is in pretty good shape. The parking area is already completed in concrete and we're seeing uh more of the sidewalks and that sort of thing uh being completed as well. Going into the interior of the building, you can see the gymnasium is starting to look also much more finished. And then uh this is in the art and music area. You can see uh one of the restrooms starting to get toilet fixtures installed and such. And the tile
038work is completed. Uh mill work in the uh music room. And then or in the art room, I'm sorry. And then in the music room again, you know, you can see the uh the polished concrete flooring is completed and uh laying ceiling and grid is or the grid is in place. Uh that's a repeat of the other photo. So looking into the uh the kitchen area, um you can see the tile work is starting to happen. There's tile on the quarry tile on the floor and also tile on the walls. This is looking into the uh area C near the admin where there is a boys and girls restroom. And so there's a common area where the sinks will go and then you can see the entrance into uh either side is similar and the
039tile work is in place on the floor on the walls and such. Uh this is looking at the photo on the left is the main entrance twotory volume entrance. uh it's uh more finished in terms of the drywall work and such. Then the other two photos are looking into the library. Again, a two-story space. And you can see that uh again drywall work and and such in the walls and uh the uh work in the ceiling area as far as mechanical systems and uh we have some tubular skylights that are all in place at this point. Uh this is looking into classrooms in area A and also looking down the area A corridor. You're seeing that again uh we're getting layin ceiling in place. Uh you're seeing seeing drywall completed. There's very minimal drywall work
040going on in area A at this point in time. And uh really the focus is turning to seeing more finishes. So, tile work, uh, cabinets being installed, and paint and all of that sort of work is what we're seeing becoming the focus moving forward. So, as you can see the pro project schedule, we're in uh March, and as you can see, a lot of the finish a lot of the trades are finishing out and we'll continue to finish out as we move forward into the months of April and May with final completion still at the end of May. substantive and I think the drone video is not gonna work today. But any questions? >> Thank you. Next we have Rafael Vadoya and Ro Giannis with Fluger and Brad James is back with Joris for the
041legacy edition. >> Everybody president superintendent members of the board. Uh we're here again to present to you an update on Southwest Legacy. Uh this is technically board report number six. uh our substantial completion date is still uh June 30th and we're still hitting that target and uh through the pay application that we process through the end of February there about uh 62%. So that that means that we're on the downhill there there's light at the end of the tunnel is what mentioned today at our meeting this morning. Um the work is progressing fairly well. They've been aggressively here recently. you see a lot of work on the inside and if you've driven by lately you've seen the progress on the exterior uh they're they're about twothirds on the masonry uh on on the on the
042exterior of the building uh by the end of the month early in April they should be completed with the masonry uh so they'll focus more a little bit on the interior on the first floor that they're already doing uh painting uh they're doing uh duck work uh they're closing up walls we're going to have pre-install meetings tomorrow for tile and mill work. That means that a lot of the finishes are going to start going up. Uh so we're progressing very well uh on the controls and the fire alarm system. They've already progressed through uh four areas of the campus. Uh which is good. They've already turned over that. We've already had some training with the staff and they continue to progress uh for their completion dates over the summer. Try to zoom in some of
043the photos. Can you start at the two top ones? >> That's fine. Just leave it there. On the photographs, you can see at the top the the the drone images that we're taking on on the left is for the legacy. All the units are already on top. They've already done the first coat of the roofing and now that the units are in, they're going to start doing the second and final coats. On the left, you see the canopy at the welding shop. That's already been completed. We've done substantial completion and we should be turning over to the campus uh here soon after they finish some minor punch list items. The the two uh photos at the bottom just shows a little of the interior show some some of the things I mentioned related to p
044to paint finishes. It's progressing very well. We're happy with the progress and and we'll continue pushing George to to deliver on time. >> Any questions? >> Thank you all. Yep, that's it. That's it for tonight, sir. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Okay. Motion tax report. >> Yes, sir. We're roughly around 91%. Uh our goal is to be about 99.5% by the end of this. So, we got a little bit more to go. >> No, sir. important. >> Yeah, I think I believe the investment report is on your in front of you. Uh we didn't get in time because before spring break we had to we didn't have it yet. purchases over 100,000 a presentation. The uh senior staff and uh curriculum and instruction has really been working on a compensation uh proposal that we call
045strategic compensation. We started it Oh, I the district started what? Last year. >> Yeah, last year. Okay. Time goes by quickly. I know that the subcommittee for instruction has heard some of this information, but we wanted to present it to the entire board. >> Good evening, board president, board members, Dr. Ball, and senior staff. Today, we're here to bring information on strategic compensation. In December, we were awarded a grant of $100,000 that would support the implementation of strategic compensation. So the agenda we're going to look at today is what is strategic compensation. We're going to look at the road map and timeline, compensation analysis, strategic compensation rationale, the principal system design overview, and looking forward at our next steps. So the question is, what is strategic compensation? On this slide, it says where we're headed,
046but I like to look at where we were, where we are, and where we're going. So, when we look on the teal, it says develop a a refined administrator evaluation system for principles and assistant principles. We are currently using the Test. So, we can say check, we've done that. Develop and adopt a TIA compliant evaluation system for all. We are currently using TA tests. So check we are we are complete. Now we're moving to where we are going. We're going to replace a traditional step and ladder pay system and transition to one based on bands of effectiveness. We're going to blend TIA retention aotment and other funding sources to ensure financial sustainability. And then we're going to adopt an approach to teacher and administrator assignment based on student need. So thinking about strategic compensation, the
047theory of action is if we prioritize differentiated pay based on effectiveness, develop a comprehensive evidencebased evaluation system, align district and TIA funds to work together to serve our highest need schools, and extend the reach to more students and more educators, and prioritize increasing compensate compens compensation based on effectiveness. Then we will retain teachers and administrators at scale. We will increase educator satisfaction. We will increase student performance and satisfaction and increase the quality and quantity of educators entering the profession. Looking at this map, there are currently 28 districts that are already u moving towards strategic compensation. If you see the 20, that is us. That's region 20. And notice there are five um with Southwest being the first um to come on board um to move toward strategic compensation. The other four are East Central um
048some of our neighbors East Central, South San Edgewood and IDEA. So what does the road map and timeline look like? We are in year two of TIA um where we're getting ready to award about 113 teachers. Last year we were we did have a focus group of principles that helped create this principal compensation system and took a year to create and so this year where the star is you'll notice that is where we are in our data capture year. We are currently right now working alongside some AP focused groups and teacher focused groups to um to create the system for APS and teachers with the full implementation happening in 2728. When you see this graph, basically it it is saying um with strategic compensation if it is it is designed so that principal effectiveness directly
049correlates to their compensation. So what does that look like? As a focus groups, we had an opportunity to think about um the outcomes and leadership components of a principal. One thing that we agreed upon is student outcomes are should be the main focus and we were at 80%. And those come from STAR map or local created assessments. Their evaluation TESS is at 20%. And notice it does say the measures with student outcomes changed based on the grade level bands. And we'll look at those in just a second. the very top. This is their evaluation and the number of points um that each principal can accumulate. But I also want you to also focus on that when we look at elementary, middle, and high. We have also break broken up the campuses A through C or
050D through F based on their accountability ratings. So, for example, if I'm an elementary school that right now is currently rated an A through a C, this is the area where I'm going to focus. My focus is really going to be on student achievement. How are my students performing and that would be 20 points, school progress is 10, closing the gaps would be 20, and MAP um is their measurement would be at 30. But if we had a campus that is a D, notice they are not focused on student achievement because they're working on school progress. We're we are actually working to close the gaps. We're looking at growth to get our kids back and our campus back to an A through C rating. So their their focus is on growth. Closing the gaps is
051the same at 20 and MAP is at 30. Looking at middle schools, if it is a middle school that is rated A through C, they too are focused on student achievement, but theirs is a little higher. It is at 35. Uh, and their school progress is at 15. Closing the gaps is at 30. D through F campuses. Um, their game is focused on growth to get them to an A through C. And so their their majority of their points are coming from domain 2, which is 45. and closing the gap is 30. High school student achievement for an A through C is 20. Domain 2 is 10. Closing the gaps is 20. But because high school is so important um with CCMR, SAT, ACT, TSI, and post-secary readiness, they both um have the five points
052indicated there. A D through F high school. Again, we're focused on that growth and so they'd focus 30 20 and then 20 on CCMR and five on postsecary. Any questions about that before I go to the next one? Through the focus groups, we were able and the support of business and finance and um we were able to create these effective level bands. Um there are six different bands focused from unsatisfactory to mastery where principles can earn over um $125,000 from elementary or high school all the way to $150,000. Through the focus of the principal group, we were also able to create a system guide book for each principal to have that really guides them and has lays out the effectiveness levels for them. So next steps, we finished principles last year. So currently we're working
053with an expert group for APS. We've already met with the APS and give and given all APS the vision and the why. Now we're um in a smaller group looking at student outcomes, TESS, and then we're going to finalize that plan in April. for teachers. We had our first um focus group before spring break with our vision and our why. And in February and um this month, which is next week, we're going to start looking at um student outcomes. And then in April, we're going to look at TA tests and culture and climate. And then we're going to finalize the plan in May. That is all I have. Do you have any questions? Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Division reviews of the strategic priority goals. >> Yes. So, um, every month now we
054want to start to provide the board information on how are we doing with our strategic priority goals. So, we will pick possibly two, maybe more. Um but every month we want to be able to give you this information to ask us questions or just to see and monitor the progress that we're making. So today uh we're we have focused on the strategic priority having to do with retra retaining and recruiting and developing talent and then also having to do with our clinical teachers. So Miss Barson oversees both of these areas. Um, so thank you very much for giving me the opportunity. Can you guys hear me on this? Um, is that better? Okay, great. Um, so in front of you, you have a copy of this presentation. Um, just to remind everybody who u may
055not be aware, this is a collaborative effort to go through the strategic priorities built by many stakeholder groups and committees in determining the areas of focus for Southwest ISD. We have targeted areas. Four simple targeted areas. The one that I'm going to talk about today is to retain, recruit, and develop talent. Under these, we have two goals. So the first goal is that the superintendent will increase the number of observation clinical resident teachers from 42, which is the number we had last year, to 60, which would be a 40% increase for the 2526 school year. As you are aware, after COVID, we had kind of a halt on student teaching. Um, they had a lot more people leave the teaching profession because of all the demands that were happening. And we're now bouncing back from
056that and really trying to focus on growing our own teachers and making sure they come back. The reason we changed that from the wording you had seen previously to only clinicals is because they don't have the same term that we utilized before which was student teaching. Everybody kind of knew for 20 years we had student teachers um in the building or people who would do practicums. So the the words that we use now are clinicals, residencies, paid residencies, observations, preclinicals. So it's changed. We decided to write it out to make it very simple for everybody to understand who we're counting in this count. So here's the numbers of what we did this fall in 2025 and spring of 2026 based on the universities that participated with us and the numbers that we have. And as
057you have seen um in the fall, we started off really strong uh went to many universities to capture their attention uh and have built great partnerships both with CNI's uh leadership and the things that they do um with the universities and also having our people go out to the job fairs. And we have over 90 future Southwest ISD teachers in our in our area right now in our district. Currently, we have 53 this spring, but if you look like if you look at the TAMUSA observations of 18 in the fall, we captured 17 of them going to student teaching or clinicals. So if they come to Southwest ISD, they want to stay here, make great first impressions, and that's how we're going to grow our teaching population. So we are going to strive to have
058higher numbers for next year to invite more people in to do observations because that makes better future teachers for us later. The next steps that we have in this plan, because we don't just stop when we make a goal, we enhance it. We were awarded the lasso grant in a partnership with CNI and so we will have paid residencies here next year and so we will be able to increase the number of teachers that are coming in from the university level that will actually get paid while they're doing their clinicals here at Southwest ISD. In addition to that, we will have uh pair professionals to professionals. We will be looking for those pair of professionals who would like to become professional teachers and helping them guide through the process of going back to school and
059getting their degree. We are also moving from substitutes to staff um people who want to come and sub and be part of the classroom. Some of them start off as volunteer teach uh volunteers in the school and then we make them subs and then if they come if they want to sub every day we try to find a pathway to make them part of our staff whether it's special ed aids or regular aids and we have classes here and people who will teach them so they become part of our system because they're already part of our community. In addition to that, we have a great partnership with region 20 and altsert programs to increase the number of teachers who um are coming in through an alternative certification method who want to stay in the district.
060Our goal number two was the superintendent will develop a plan to enhance teacher retention by implementing mentoring program and building support systems to improve retention rates for educators. As you saw, um, last year we had the smallest number of new teachers we've ever had because we really were able to retain our teacher in our teacher groups. We are on track to me make that goal this year. Um, I want to make sure that everybody understands how we calculate it because if you look at the taper report, the number is going to look different, but I want to explain that to make it very transparent for everybody. We run our own calculations. Our calculations do not include retirees. We do not um count anybody who has lost their certification or who didn't follow through to complete
061their certification. And we do not could we do not have the ones that maybe have moved through military um uh deployment somewhere or who've gone on to move to other states because those are not eligible for contract renewal because they're either gone or they're not qualified. We are only taking the ones that we would recommend. So if we want to recommend these 100, how many did we actually capture back? And that is our percentage. So it differs from taper taper but I will tell you we're very close. We are under the the we are under the state number for loss of teachers because we have a great community here. We have a great culture here. People want to be at Southwest. If we can get teachers to stay five years, they'll stay for their career.
062And so our job is to help improve the things that we do by making sure that we have a very strong mentoring program. We partner with uh Riley and Presley. They used to be region 20 trainers for new teachers. Um we received a mentoring grant which will now turn into the lasso grant. We have trained all the mentors. So it's no longer you're a third grade teacher and you're going to get this new teacher and good luck. We actually train every single mentor and work with them monthly so they ensure that they keep in touch with their mentees. We have addressed in the principal evaluation how they address new teachers and mentoring and monitoring their new teachers. We've built a better and newer teacher academy. We've purchased new teacher supplies because the cost of living
063if anybody went and got gas this weekend is higher. And so we also do ongoing feedback and monitoring through the central office through either AHR and CNI making sure that we go in and help teachers. And then through Monday message and other appropriate committees, we answer questions that new teachers may be afraid to ask out loud, but they can ask in a form and get an answer quickly. In addition to that, we have several different employee groups that we go out and meet with and speak to groups of staff members to see how we can improve the culture on each campus. Our next step this week, we'll be pushing out the TASBY employee survey. And from there, we'll analyze the data that we receive to help each campus focus on particular goals that they can
064address to help build up the culture or an area of um an area that they can strengthen in the next year. We will help um build those cultural goals with them. We'll work through the new lasso grant making sure we have a lot more brand new mentors and mentees because we will be able to pay them through the grant. We will help train administrators on mediation and conflict resolution to help them solve and give soft skills to new um personnel that come onto their campus. We'll continue to do all our meeting groups and then we'll continue to address all the needs that the new teachers give us at the new teacher academy. That's how we're addressing that. We hope to have a good number for you when you come to the new teacher academy and
065that we've met our goal, but we're in line to meet that goal really well this year. >> Want to thank Menus and her division for all the work that they're doing. It's getting harder and harder to recruit teachers and to retain them. Uh but we're doing an excellent job in both recruiting and retaining. Thank you. >> Item seven was item eight. This is finance consideration and possible approval of order authorizing the issuance sale and delivery of surplus tax. >> Yes sir. Thank you. So tonight we're going to be asking the board to authorize a parameter sale on our tax refunding bonds unlimited for this series 26 2026. Tonight with us we have Samco from Samco Andrew Freriedman and Jack McCain. Like to come on up and also from Esamia and Panic our bond council Alberto
066Aguila. members Andrew Friedman with Santo Capital Markets along with Jack McCiny. Uh Jack is handing out a timetable of events. Uh this parameter bond refunding uh order uh for your consideration uh will allow for the district to refund its outstanding bonds or some of its outstanding bonds to realize debt service savings. Uh we've done parameter sales in the past. As a reminder, what that is is you're delegating your authority as a board through this order uh to Superintendent Dr. Ball uh and Mr. Chris uh to act as pricing officers when we do eventually go to market. So long as we meet certain thresholds of that bond refunding, uh they can act through the delegated authority to approve the sale of those bonds. Uh what we're considering here are refunding some of our 2016 unlimited tax
067school building and refunding bonds which are callable. Uh presently uh roughly 11,635,000 uh remain outstanding. Of those uh last summer you all also authorized a cash defeasence which will be wrapped up along with this in the goal of maintaining the tax rate and saving uh money to the tune. And this isn't a tremendous amount of savings. Again, we're refunding $11 million worth of bonds to realize uh in the present market, about $1.24 million of savings over uh about an 11-year period. That's roughly 6% savings. That 6% is a threshold that we look at as to whether or not a refunding is worth pursuing. Anything over really 3% be great. Interest rates were moving in the right direction. Uh geopolitical events over the last couple of weeks have thrown the markets into a little bit of
068turmoil, but we're not planning to move forward on this until later in the summer. So hopefully we get some stability, the markets calm down. That timetable uh that's before you ultimately has us selling these bonds. Uh and again, we're not fixed to a certain date, but June 3rd. The reason for pushing that out into the future is so that we can get taxable assessed values starting at the end of April so that we can effectively target a correct debt service payment to set a tax rate uh to meet your tax rate goals and then we close roughly 30 days later. So that pricing date could change, could shift a little bit depending on market conditions, but we'll work closely with district staff uh to make sure that we're hitting uh the targets that you all
069are wanting to hit. So with that, I'm happy to answer any questions. If you have any legal questions, uh your bond attorney, Berto Aguilera, is here to answer any questions about the order itself. I turn it over to you all for any questions you have. >> Question is things don't get better, we're not >> No, sir, we're not. And so this order will be uh in effect for six months. If we don't act on this refunding within six months of of today, then we would have to come back to you all for additional authority to proceed with that refund. So, no harm, no foul. This allows us to really just kind of try to time the market best possible. >> Yes, sir. So, we're recommended to the board to approve the resolution. Motion second question.
070>> Thank you all. Good luck. Beautiful new building here. >> Thank you. >> Very excited to be here. approving the resolution dealing with wage issues for employees involving emergency school. >> Yes, sir. Due to the possible inclement weather on January 26, 2026, uh districts across Bear County uh decided to close and due to that uh local policy allows us to address the pay for that day. So there's any harm against any employees. So tonight we're asking the board to approve the resolution dealing with the wage issues involved on that closure day. >> A second Yeah, Winston and his team with Kylie are going to come up and present on the the cafeteria table for one. Today we're here on behalf of the child department asking for approval for the purchase of our cafeteria tables for
071one Alvarado Elementary School. The tables we're looking at you could see here on your screen. We went out and got multiple quotes on threein- one cafeteria tables. These have been very useful in our elementary schools and we do currently have them in three of our schools. As you can see in the pictures, they could be a full table. They could switch to a single table or best of all they could fold up into a bench which is really helpful for all the events that we hold in our cafeterias throughout the school year. We did go out and receive multiple quotes and we are recommending to the board to move forward with the company Indico. We chose them based off the quality of the product. They have a really great warranty and then of course the
072price. Their quote came in right under the threshold of $100,000 at $99,979.82. Since this came in below the threshold with y'all's approval, we'll move forward with the small purchase procurement method, receiving three quotes, which we already have obtained. Once and if y'all do approve it, then we'll be meet meeting both with Indico and Miss Hernandez to finalize any colors of the tabletops and the chairs. You could see some examples that we did receive back from the vendor based off the current marketing renderings that we received from the architects. Do you all have any questions for us? I move >> second a >> motion second that we approve the purchase of cafeteria tables the amount not to exceed 110,000 members vote now thank you >> CNI concern approval of a contract with National Institute of Excellence
073in Teaching. >> Yes. Uh last month we brought to the board our celebration of being recipients of the Lasso of four grant which is a lift in order for us to improve our services to our students through our leadership and instructional foundations for Texas. Uh that grant was for $1.1 million and tonight we are asking for the board to approve the vendor that we have selected to provide these services which is NIT, the National Institute for Excellence in Teaching. So they will be the the provider that we will be working with in order for us to provide these services to our campus this coming school year. So we're just asking the board to approve this provider. Thank you. >> Good evening board. Dr. volunteering your staff. Tonight we're bringing forward the uh for your consideration
074the recommendation to approve the district's elementary highquality instructional materials adoption for reading language arts for the 2627 school year. So before I get into the timeline, I want to talk a little bit about the IMRA process and that stands for the um instructional materials review and approval process and that was um something that was enacted in House Bill6005. And what it is is that they review different curriculum resources and they deem them as what they call high quality instructional materials. And uh basically what they're doing is making sure that they're aligned to the TEACS, they're aligned to the ELPS and that they offer off offer rigorous instruction uh for all Texas classrooms. So once we received that official list in November, um we started to review it to narrow down the different um high quality
075instructional materials that were approved. And what we did is, you know, ensuring that we had alignment across um all grade levels. So in other words, they had to have kindergarten through fifth grade and then also a dual language. So in other words, they would have it both in English and in Spanish. So we narrowed down that list um and then we presented we had um those individuals come and present to our district leaders. And you will see that in February we had three vendors come out. um blue bonnet reading was presented by region 20. Hm came out to um to discuss in reading and then Sabas came out to um present my view literacy and present it to the teacher leaders. So once we they uh had those presentations then we uh gave a digital
076survey and we narrowed it down to two vendors and then those two vendors then that's when they were um asked to come back and they presented to all of our teachers, staff and any communities who wanted to come out and hear those presentations. Campuses were also um asked to submit rubrics um with their final vote and that was in February. And then in March, you'll see that that's when we had our final vote and the rubrics were tabulated and then our final selection is being brought to you this. So the top two publishers that were was HMH into reading and Aria Laura and then uh the Savas My View and Mic for Spanish. So once we had um those two uh publishers and they came out once again and presented to the teachers and then
077we asked the teachers again to review they provided samples to all of the campuses. The teachers had time to review them. They also had time to meet and talk about um and give feedback as far as the rubric. So you'll see here in this uh slide that we all of the campuses were represented. Um so it's pretty much an equal part that we did have participation from each of the campuses and then you'll see also here by grade levels at each of the grade levels also provided input. This is an example of the rubric that was given. So they were looking at takes alignment text complexity knowledge coherence textbased responses and resources. All of the grade levels at each of the campuses got together reviewed this rubric and then provided their feedback. The last thing
078that they did is provided the final vote. So after they had completed their rubric then um they were able to submit their final vote. And so you will see here that um HMH uh was selected by 62%. Um, and so at this time we are respectfully requesting the board approve HMH into reading for English RLA and Aria Lura for Spanish RLA for kindergarten through fifth grade beginning in the 2627 school year. We also want to acknowledge um Dr. Lilia Nay and Joan VA who were um the our representatives for HMH. Does anyone have any questions? >> Well, what we have to do first is we're going to um look. So, once we get it approved, then that's when um Lisa Wily, who does the EMAT, she will put in all of that information and then
079we will know exactly. So, we'll probably coming back for approval on the purchase. I move >> motion second board approve the following textbook selected for 256 district textbook the district recommended adm reading Texas for kindergarten five English language Texas for Spanish language arts and reading both published by court instructional material process now. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> Yes, I have a lot of um additionals. First of all, I'd like to thank uh the staff at Scobby and the community. Yesterday, we had a power outage which was not in our control. Um, but we want to thank the staff for handling it very well because that did last all day. So, thank you to the team and to everybody that helped out with that. We are very appreciative. Lots of great things going on in
080the district. Um, tomorrow, Wednesday, at 9:00, we have a signing for Paris Alakinz. Uh, she is signing to go to Temple College and play softball. Very proud of her. We also have an Anel Angelina Terasas uh who's honor will be honoring her uh family and signing her college letter of intent to the University of Cumberlands and play softball. We also have a state sendoff tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. We have the Dragon Powerliffters that will be participating. I shared with the board we have soccer, lots of soccer going on on Thursday and Friday. We also have a job fair this Saturday at Mcola if anybody would like to go from 9 to 12. We also have a car show on Saturday from 9 to 12 at Legacy. And then we also have our annual casino night
081on Friday, March the 27th at Country Gold Ballroom from 6 to 11. So very excited about that. One other uh announcement that I have is I don't know if everybody has noticed that there's been a certain odor in the air and if you're driving off of old Pieraw Road, you've notice a mulch that has been burning. So do want to let the board members know that we are aware of that. We've also reported that to TCQ. Um, and if anybody else would like to report that, you can also do that. But we are monitoring that closely for the safety of our of our students. And if anybody wanted to report that, the phone number is 2104903096. as permitted by sections 551.001 through 551.146 of the Texas Government Code. Pursuant to Texas Government Code 551.074 074
082discussion on personnel and administrator employment resignations, reassignments, leave of absence, contract renewals, and B pursuant to section 551.074 of the Texas government code discussion and approval of superintendent contract, we will now go into close session at 7:21. come back at the open meeting at 8:32 and we'll go straight to item 12 a superintendent's recommendations on personnel administrator employment resignations reassignments of absences contract renewals >> I move that we approve the superintendent's recommendation on personnel. >> Your motion is second. Board members vote now. >> Motion passes. On item B, consider approval of superintendent contract. We're going to uh no action at this time. Other business hearing? None. Let's go home at 8:32.