001Everyone, I hereby call call call this meeting to order. It is 6:02 p.m. Let's go ahead and get started with the roll call. We can start on my right. Jessica Choa present. >> Carlos Marggo present. >> Alisa Pñena present. >> Stooman Jr. present. Rosalandez present. >> Vega present. >> Great. Um, now if you are able to do so, please stand for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible and justice for all. The next item on the agenda is public comments. Each speaker will have three minutes to speak. Do we have any individuals that are registered for public comments today? >> We have no public comment today. >> All right. And let the record show that it
002is 6:03 and board president Julian Alvarez is on the dice. >> Great. Okay. Okay, we have the superintendent's update. Uh, unfortunately, she's not here and we do know that she has other things that she's attending to, so she'll be right with us. What else do we have? Dr. Oh, we have Merlette Cresbow. So, agenda item number five again, superintendent's update announcements, um, updates on items 5.5, budget priorities three and four. Miss Creswell, it's all yours. >> Thank you, Mr. President, board. Good evening, community. Today we are completing uh our review of the budget priorities for the 2627 budget development. So of course uh we are focusing on the strategic investment for student success and that is the the work we are going to see today always ourselves on vision mission goals and our northstar goal
003and our strategic plan and our five priorities. The budget priorities three and four used refresh is part of the items that we have created for concentrating and forcing stimulating our community or stakeholders to think on what we needs to sustain and improve our student performance. The two priorities that we are reviewing today are access to student support and after school activities and operational innovation, investment and sustainability. If you remember last time when we talked about budget priorities, the intention of this is being able to support and show the community that we are centering our decisions around the things that are prior prior priority around the community. Um expand what is uh what we call access to student support and after school activities. Expand opportunities that directly support student well-being, engage engagement and achievement and operational
004innovation, investment and sustainability to innovate operational systems and processes to improve service quality, modernize infrastructure and ensure long-term sustainability. Oh, sorry. Got it. Sorry. Okay. Um I want to emphasize that we are centering during this development on a stakeholder voice. We went around with the superintendent advisory groups including teachers, principals, parents and students. And here is a cute picture of our students working for with us. Um and we found consistent teams across all the groups that we talked to on what do we wanted to invest the funds, what was the priority for them and where they see the district prioritizing when we are working on investments on investing the funds in our activities. So what we have been asked to address in reference to student experience with the students, the parents, the teachers, the principles
005talk about gaps in academics and emotional u supports emotional support desire for more extended learning experiences and increases student increasing a student needs support like academic needs post-secary needs mental health and leadership for the system and the observations we have and you have seen some of that in our audits but also the reflection for NF stakeholders they talk about inefficiencies in process manual systems that impede or support or improvement on processes, need for stronger controls and scalability, long-term plans and sustainability and improvement on needed services delivery for current staff member in support roles. So what we are proposing in this two areas um some of the items that we have been putting we are working on in the budget support improving a student support services focusing on mental health and multi multi-ter systems of support
006improve extended learning opportunities for students at all ages all grades align career pathways and work-based learning opportunities for our students in high schools increase extracurricular access for all our students and improve that assistance that improve outcomes and visibility. What we observe, what we track is what we get improved and we can work on. In the s of operational innovation, investment and sustainability, some of the things that we are seeing in the budget are around improving systems and reporting tools to ensure that the data is transparent, is clear, and we know where we're talking about. Addressing staffing capacity and challenges. Increase long-term financial forecasting. Invest in technology to increase not only access but a strategic use. Make a futurebased uh developing sustainability planning and delivering a long range facility master plan. What these proposals will enable
007the district for our students increase access to supports. That's the first thing they have been asking us to improve engagement, a stronger academic outcomes and academic interventions and accelerations to support our students in improving their performance for the district as a whole. This will provide more efficient operations, a stronger financial controls, increased culture and accountability, capacity to reinvest in classroom and campuses, intentional recruitment, hiring and retention efforts. These are investments. These are efforts and that are designed not only to support students directly but to ensure that we have operational strength and that sustain any support and any change that we are implementing during this transition time. Of course we are centering in financial discipline and accountability. We have been keeping our guard rails through the whole process ensuring of course that we are doing a
008balanced budget. Uh prioritizing around all everything around the strategic plan with focusing on the student outcomes conserving concentrating on academic return of investment ensuring that we know what we are measuring and what we are tracking through these implementations so we can monitor and increase accountability. That is one of the things that we want to ensure. So we we are fiscally responsible on the investments for the district. What it means for us, we want to ensure that we respond to our stakeholders, that we are responsible with the finances, but we are responsible with activities that we implement. We want our students to receive needed support and become academically and holistically successful. We want systems that are reliable and efficient, modern systems. We want resources that are used strategically and responsible and we will be able to
009show the community what are our finance where that our finances and expenditures are consistent, transparent and our reporting is focused on what is the results and decision making is effective. We are committed to deliver an educational excellence for every student. That is our mission and that's what we want to achieve. That is my presentation for today and that is the all commitment for the year for this budget. Any questions? >> Any questions for Merid from the board? >> No. >> Thank you. >> Okay. See, we had none. Thank you, Mette. Thank you very much. Next item on the agenda is 5.2. This is our summer programs overview. This will be done by Derek Little and Dr. Little or Miss Candelario. You're stuck with me. You're stuck with me. >> Okay, good. No, that's fine. Thank
010you very much. You may proceed. >> No problem. Good evening, board president, board, and uh soon to be Dr. Sorenson. I'm excited to share about La Hoya's summer program for the 2026 summer. So, first off, why join summer programming at La Hoya ISD? why some students may be choosing to sit on the couch. We're going to have our students launching drones, um, writing code, and getting college ready. Every single program is free to our enrolled students. No family has to choose between costs and enrichment here at La Hoya. We're not just preventing summer slide, but we're also accelerating the m momentum that we've been building this school year all the way from preK3 to 12th grade. In elementary, our highlights are the AdSie Steam Camp, giving our youngest learners two hours of hands-on steam every
011single day. Inventors unleash making academics feel like an adventure. Our prek bilingual program meets emergent emerging bilingual students exactly where they are, building language and math skills together. We support all students during this program. No student is left out. We are providing our students with dyslexia, special education, migrant 504 and support programs across our programs. For middle school, we'd like to highlight the meet and master steam tech camp which puts 3D printers, laser engravers, and drones in students hands. Skills that will matter in every career in the future. We are teaching innovation, entrepreneurship and communication. Not just technical skills, but things that they can set and change their mindset about their career and future. Our gear up grant services are also available during middle school and they are woven in between meaning college readiness and
012also summer fun. in high school. Our PEK summer bridge gives incoming ninth graders a running start before they start their school year for college readiness and to see what it looks like. We also have our CTE summer bridge that connects a real career pathways um that continuing their exploration throughout their school year. We also have our STC Kata camps that are with drone, rootech and HVAC which give our GT and CTE students industry grade experience that usually they don't get until college. Our early college programming um utilize the text prep which is partnered with our UT RGV which is a gateway to engineering and science careers. It's a really point of pride of our summer programming. The early college programs at Jimmy Carter uh keep dual credit students on track, ensuring that they are ready
013to earn college hours and not scrambling to catch up. And of course, our extended school year for our special education students as well, which reflects our commitment to students with individualized needs. So, just a brief overview of our summer uh program um bell schedule. We worked really intentionally as a summer committee to ensure that times are varied for transportation purposes. Um also to ensure our students are getting breakfast as well. Um and parents are able to also if they have different students at different levels in order to get them to their their uh point of places for summer. So, next steps. Um, this is what summer programming looks like and it is super excited for every student to really earn the right to enrichment. And so, we are asking staff um to identify students to
014connect with families um and to get them registered um because we are ready, our programs are ready for them. And so, now we just need students in the seats. So, we just have a full possibilities for the start of this summer and it starts in the next nine days. we really need to ensure our students continue to register. Um, our staff apply and the key deadline here is April 17th. Um, there we have our parent and staff registration closing and so we have nine days to really continue to build this momentum up. So again, our summer is really full of possibilities here for La Hoya summer programming. Any questions? >> Any members of the board questions for Miss Kandelario? Yes, Dr. Marggo. >> Thank you. Miss Kario just um an overall how many seats are
015we talking about? Just curious if you have an estimated number of individuals that will go to these summer programs in total. >> So currently we right now we have 25 about 2500 students that have already registered for summer programming. We are looking our goal number is 65% of our um population student population. So we have a ways to go but we are heavily recruiting and we have full team to to do that at our campuses. >> Okay. Thank you. Any other members? >> Yes. >> I have a question. So I'm looking at the elementary what's being offered at the elementary level. Uh those do the students or the parents have a a say in what they want to enroll or is it every it's uh each week a mix of everything or how >> so
016there is a set schedule um and then each day each week there's a different theme. >> Oh thank you. >> Yeah >> good question. I remember going to this last year so it was a lot of fun. So we we've enjoyed it in the past. We've enjoyed it. Any other members have questions? Miss >> Gandelaria, how does this differ from last year enrollment thus far? >> That's a that's a great question. Since I wasn't here last year, it's going great. >> Yeah, I I'll help out with this one. Uh for some historical context, uh board member AOA. So last year we ended up with about 3,500 students actively participating uh in all of the summer programs combined. With the time that we have left in registration, we certainly think we're going to get more than
017that total. Uh we have some specific pushes left to do particularly in our secondary spaces. Uh so those numbers will rise. And then to the elementary uh question earlier, that's a really great fun experience. So helping families to understand that this is something that you really want your child participating in. They're going to benefit from it while they're having a ton of fun. So all of those numbers will climb. At the end of the day, I think we will exceed um last numbers participation. Uh overall, >> okay, thank you. >> Board member, if I could add president, are you okay with that, please? Um, I also think it's really important and I apologize for walking in late, but I was at one of my after the bell conversations at Memorial Middle School. Um, but really
018think it's important to add um some shifts in practice that we want to talk about across the district. So, I appreciate Dr. Little lifting up the high school space. So um historically in the district um if students were not successful during the school year um in classes we would just program them next year year after year after year um creating sections um almost like planning for failure. We would see master schedules say with like 10 sections just in case kids failed English 2 say for example. And so we're trying to reculture the district where there is an a consequence immediately for not passing a course. You don't pass a course, you go to summer school. We can't continue as a district to just plan for failure. First of all, we've got to do everything that
019we can on the front end to support students. Then if you don't fail, if you don't pass, you go to summer school and you make it up. And you make it up immediately. This isn't something that you're carrying credit deficient year after year after year. and or we just continue to program you into a class that you failed repeatedly for years. And so we have to spend more time with our counselors understanding that that's our new way of working. We have to communicate that very firmly with families um because again students need to understand that it's important to pass your classes and it's important to pass them the first time around. And so, um, that is a shift in practice for our district, um, where again, historically, we would just have a lot of extra
020spaces in our master schedule for makeup classes. Not saying we won't have any, but um, on average, we would plan for about three FTE per course just for failure. Um, and so we can't we can't do that anymore. We have to expect more of children. We have to expect more of ourselves and so we have to provide the supports over the summer for students to have the opportunity to make that up. >> Okay. Thank you, >> Miss Gandeli. What I love about this program is it's going to be fun to go to summer school, right? I mean, what a transition from, you know, if you went to summer school, you were failing, but here it seems like it's a kind of reward. Um, I I'm curious. Do we have a first robotics team? >> I
021think I asked that question before. And I'm curious if they're participating in this. >> We do have uh students that do UIL robotics. Uh they do participate in a variety of events. These are more exposure opportunities for students. So maybe I've never done that before, but that's something I can start to try out within the summer programming. >> No, no, no. I was just curious if we had that because I I they could serve as mentors, right? Or even their projects that they've uh they worked on all year to maybe showcase them during this time. It was just a thought. Great idea. >> Just a thought. Any other members have questions for this? >> I have questions. So, I see that it's free for all the La Hoya ISD students. How about students that are
022not enrolled here? Um, are they available to come? Maybe test it out, see how fun La Hoya is, >> right? >> It is for La Hoya ISD students only. So, we certainly are in the season of encouraging everyone who wants to be a La Hoya ISD student that now is the time to enroll. Uh it is not open though if you are not a district student. >> Thank you. >> Maybe I missed this. What is if if a student since Dr. Sasonson mentioned it and it made a lot of sense. I mean it was great remarks. If a student isn't doing well are what are the requirements like in order to be eligible for such a program >> at the elementary and middle school levels? The requirements are fairly loose from a state perspective. It's
023really what we are encouraging and advocating for families to do for children in general. Certainly like we're took STAR reading today. It is ongoing. Uh if students get their results back and they're not successful, so they're they do not meet uh their requirements for STAR, we directly encourage those students to attend the summer programs because this is really important time uh for additional learning uh to make sure that they're ready for the start of next school year. You could have a student though that achieved masters on STAR and certainly participate as well. The high school programs though are much more targeted. They are specifically focused either on students who have not been able to successfully pass the course and or pass the relevant end of course exam. And we have a lot of enrichment and
024acceleration opportunities that Miss Condoler, sorry, Miss Scandalio talked about as well. Got tongue tied. Uh so there's really a whole range of spaces, but those are much more designated based on the students specific needs and interests at that point in their academic career. >> You have any questions? >> I was just going to make a comment. I I think um I remember in the town halls we did hear parents ask about enrichment opportunities, right? So saying, "Hey, my student is uh is in the gifted program." you know, we traditionally think of uh summer school as um you know, just kind of enhancing what you didn't get to do during um the year where wherever you missed out. So, I appreciate just kind of the the ability to have these enrichment opportunities uh for our gift
025students as well. >> Yeah. Great. Miss Oil, >> yes. I I engaged with students recently who were requesting SAT prep during the high school summer program. Is that something that would be offered? ST SAT specifically is not part of the core curriculum. However, we do have TSI camps. We have summer bridge camps for students entering the early college programs. And a lot of that content also helps you whether it's the ACT or SAT, even though it's not a direct SAT prep course, but that will set you up for more success on those assessments. >> Members, I love what you have rolled out. This is good and I'm looking forward to this summer. I I I have one more question and it's just just something I was thinking of when we were talking about innovative and
026and the programs that have is have existed in the past. Have um are there opportunities in these types of programs to include parents to maybe work with their kids? I don't know if many parents are home during the summer, but since it's maybe a week off or it's during a week, I should say maybe parents that are there. Do we have any such programs where parents could participate with their children? >> The answer is sort of and we're working on that more. So, one of the specific things in the strategic plan is building out more opportunities both directly for parents separate from their children and with their children. Uh, Miss Kendallio leads part of that work. So, that's underway. It's not fully built out yet, but know that that's coming over the life of the
027strategic plan. The other thing I want to say is part of what we have built for this summer is also reflective of feedback we got from families last summer. So we met with families both before we launched the programs during and after got that feedback have incorporated it into this. So our families are part of the design of what we're doing as well. >> Great board president. Can I >> Yes, Dr. Schwarzen. >> Thank you. Um but also um and thank you uh Dr. Little for lifting that up. It's really important for all of our parents to know and understand because it was a bit of feedback that we got from parents was they wanted to know that this isn't just for struggling students, right? They want to make sure that if they are attending
028the summer program stay even in elementary, right? Especially I think our elementary parents were probably the most vocal about it. They wanted to ensure that our students weren't just sitting there hour after hour after hour being drilled on test prep. they really wanted it to be an authentic learning experience. And so we've designed um really strongly at the elementary program that there are times and spaces where we are reading and math and and really working very intentionally on the grade level skills and to make sure that during those p spaces like if you're a GT student, you're actually getting enrichment in content, right? it doesn't feel like remediation to a student who's at masters. And then there are is all the programming the enrichment program built built throughout the day because that was a piece
029that we heard from our parents very much is they didn't want their students to just be locked into like one mode. Um they wanted it to actually be an authentic learning experience. And so we've built the day to match just that to make sure that all kids along the learning continuum are getting fun and enrichment and enhancement um so that they end up where they need to be at the end of the summer to avoid that summer slide. Thank you Dr. Sornson. I'm looking forward to it and so I think please invite us all and please let us know when that's coming up. Thank you Miss Gandelia. Uh doc Dr. Little, you have the next agenda item. Lonear governance uh 6.1 enrollment and transfers update. >> Thank you, Mr. President. We're actually going to tag
030team this. I'm going to do the first half. Miss Kendallario is going to do the second half. She's been deeply involved in helping to to lead this work along with members of our team. We're coming back to do two things. Um one is to acknowledge that I didn't do all of the first thing in the way that we should have in terms of the policy revision. So, we are asking you to make one additional policy change tonight to our transfer policy. So, I'm going to lay out sort of what that is and why we're coming back to ask for it. And then number two, we want to transparently share with you and the community where we have ended up with transfer requests and decisions for next school year. So, to start with just quick overview
031of sort of where we are, we have gone through that reenrollment process for all of our current families. Again, we are also actively any day enrolling students who are new to the district and want to come back to or for the first time join La Hoya ISD. So, everyone should know that we are still active in enrollment for uh new and returning students. The big focus for tonight's discussion is on the transfer requests and the results of of that processing. Over 9,000 transfer requests were submitted uh within the district. So, we're going to break that down for you. and then want to revisit again the policy changes that we made. One as a reminder of what we've done to improve our process in our system and then two talk about the one additional change that
032we are seeking board approval on. At the end of the day, we are really trying to ensure that every school in La Hoya ISD is set up for success. That they have a robust population of students supported by really excellent faculty and staff and the community to ensure that we meet our student outcomes, which we're going to talk about later with the superintendent constraint schools. Uh so all that we've been doing from a policy and a practice standpoint is meant to honor that ultimate vision for enrollment and transfers in general. As a quick reminder of what the board approved back in January, uh we came to you asking for some substantive adjustments to our enrollment and transfers policies and process. All of those really were meant to create better equity and a more streamlined process
033for families, number one, and then two, certainly for us as we process all of those requests and applications. We also wanted to ensure that we incorporated the latest information from TASBY and TEA. It had been a number of years since these policies had been reviewed and revised. So, we were able to to make alignment updates there. And then to my point of ensuring that every school can be strong, that's part of what this is about. Certainly as we get into middle schools and in particular high schools, making sure that every campus has really great opportunities for students and that we're not just creating excellent spaces only at one place because that's where students are trying to transfer to for extracurricular athletic opportunities, but we're really building this notion of, you know, a good, strong, comprehensive
034high school that serves the students that live within that high school's boundaries. We'll talk about that more in a bit, but that's a real focus of what we've done through these transfer reviews. And then all of this meant to, and this is part of tonight's additional proposal, reduce burdens on families, just make the process easier and more straightforward. And we think with our additional request tonight, that's going to go uh even further. The last piece on here, the bottom right box, is super important because we have to ensure that transfer requests aren't creating staffing or budgetary burdens at the same time. So, we work really carefully to ensure that we're honoring as much as our families and students are asking for without having to uh overload a campus with staff or create financial burdens that
035we can't sustain. So that's a bit of the balancing act that we go through as we're reviewing uh these requests. So this is a bit more detail on those policy changes that we made in January. I'll I'll pull a few out as a reminder. One of the biggest things that we did differently this year was the timeline itself. We used to not even accept transfer requests until right now in April. That went through June. It made it very hard for families and it made it very hard for our schools to adjust to that enrollment fluctuation to know exactly where people were going to school to be ready to staff that and to have the right set of materials in the school for the number of students that were going to show up. So, we moved
036that up earlier in the process to really match the time frame that we asked people to make decisions for next year, but also to set our campuses up in the planning for that. that helps with course scheduling, that helps with creation of master schedules, it helps with staffing, it helps with final budget planning. Uh, all of that was improved through that timeline adjustment. I'm going to skip the second one and call out a couple others and then I'll come back. The other thing that we started to do at the high school level, and this will be related to our our additional request, is to say once you start at a high school, you really need to finish at that high school. It's not good for the student. It's not good for the family to have
037to bounce around between high schools. So like once you begin that's really where you need to graduate. So we didn't move students around uh as a result of hey this is a different place. We really wanted to honor that. That's the that's the program that's the pathway to our other goal for GPMs in particular where like you're going to stay and you're going to finish. Uh the last two things that we did here at the bottom of the slide is just clarified what this means for like internal staff children. We certainly review those requests and honor as many as we can. But again, that's subject to space availability. Uh, and hardship transfers. This is one of the TEA alignments that we made with new TASBY language on exactly what a hardship transfer is and how
038we review those on a case-byase basis. The thing that we're bringing back to you tonight is really related to number two, and that's the duration in which the transfer is approved. long-standing history in La Hoya ISD is that you had to apply every year. So, I had to apply maybe I showed up as a kindergartener, I went to a different school as a transfer and every year after that, first, second, third, fourth, and fifth grade, I had to reapply. That just doesn't make sense from a family standpoint. You build that relationship. You build that connection. That's the school that you've committed to. And so as long as our policy criteria is met related to maintaining academic good standing, not having signi significant discipline issues, and showing up to school, we're not going to ask families
039to do that reapplication anymore if the board grants that additional approval tonight. So what's in this sort of pink box in the middle is the new language that we are proposing. And what it says is once you have a transfer application approved, that continues for that level of school as long as you continue to meet the requirements within the policy. So if I apply as a kindergarten student, I'm not going to have to apply as a transfer student again until potentially middle school if I'm not choosing to go to my home designated uh feeder school. So all throughout elementary, it's one application. Then all throughout middle school, it's one application. and then all throughout high school it's just that one application. So that's what we're asking you to revise tonight. Again, apologies that we didn't
040include this the first time. It really helped us to sort of pause and start looking at these applications more deeply as we were processing them to really realize we shouldn't be asking our families to do it this way because so many of the 9,000 are for students who are in a school that they've been in for a long time and they're only filling out the paperwork because we tell them they have to. And so we can remove that burden uh from our families. And then finally before I hand it over to look at the the results themselves. So just a few quick reminders that'll help frame the data that Miss Kendallario really goes through. When I talk about meeting the requirements and policy, there's three specific things that are called out there. The first is
041academic standing. You got to do your coursework. You got to be passing your classes. like it is a privilege to be a transfer student and you've got to continue to maintain that privilege with your commitment to doing well at that school. Same thing for attendance. You're chronically absent. That's a problem. We know that we're deeply focused on improving chronic absenteeism in the district. That's what we expect of our transfer students as well to show up and to do that um every day. And then behavior is the third. You can't be a transfer student and then go cause a ruckus at the school whenever you want, however often you want. uh you got to honor the code of conduct, you got to be in good standing. So if you're not in good standing in those three
042things, that's the only time that a student once approved may have to go back to their homeschool is if they are violating one of these three policy expectations. The other three things here are also equally important and this is really how we're considering new transfer requests. I mentioned space. If the school is full, the classroom is full, we can't honor that request. Again, the rule of thumb here is a transfer student can't require us to have to add another staff member to the campus. So, just because you're wanting to transfer in doesn't mean we're going to staff a whole another teacher for that that class, that grade level. A UIL eligibility is part of that building strong schools. Uh we're not going to let students particularly at high school transfer just because they want to
043go play on a particular team. We have great teams everywhere and it's important that you're really sticking with your feeder pattern school and we're building all of those programs. So, we're looking for transfers that are particularly trying to get around UIL eligibility requirements. And then the last piece, uh, which is part of any sort of documentation for the district is you got to be honest in the submission. Like addresses matter. We have feeder patterns in our districts. We have school boundaries. You just adjusted some of those with our school actions. That drives part of what we're doing in transportation. Um so folks have to you know uh faithfully present what they are asking for and what the constraints and contexts of their family are through that process. All of that said we also review these
044in a particular way. There is a prioritization as we go through these applications this year and any year where we have school action changes. That's going to be the first consideration when the district is changing where you're able to go to school because of a school action. you then have first right to other places within the district. That JC lottery is just also a note that we have the Jimmy Carter lottery every year for the early college process. So that goes through the specific application process that gets counted in these transfer numbers because that's not technically anyone's zone school, but that's really the application to the early college um setting. And then as we mentioned, if you're currently a transfer, you get to stay as long as you meet the criteria. uh if you have
045never been a transfer student before and you're at a school action student that gets factored in as well and then all the other new requests. So I decide that I want to change next year even though I've been here at my zone school those um come later down the line and then are new to district students. The caveat I would say here is you know we are always welcoming anyone who wants to join the Hoya ISD and we are actively recruiting specifically for our prek babies right now but for any grade level it is time to enroll. it's time to come join the pack and we certainly welcome you uh here at any point. So what we're going to do for the the next few slides is Miss Kendall is going to actually show the
046data to you and sort of unpack how this played out with each of the decision points. >> Thank you Dr. Little. So first I want to just point out that we had 99.25% 25% of families completely register during our window, which is really exciting, a strong outcome of the effectiveness of our district and our campus outreach efforts. It's important to note that we are still enrolling uh families. Families are coming back to us. Um and we anticipate some changes. We have our prek uh enrollment coming. We're going to get more students in. Students are coming back to us. I'm so excited to share that number uh to you as well. And the recruitment efforts are still still occurring where we are attending different events around the different cities and we uh you may see our
047enrollment bus around and we are here and and really trying to capture as many families as we can for next year. Um and the one point too is at the end of the window and our enrollment as a team we are really going to look at an impact uh report from outreach to to the window to the transfer policy and what we can do better and how we can improve for next year. So our numbers are these are final internal uh transfer numbers really um as Dr. Little mentioned we had 9,224 transfer requests, but out of that number, there are some true transfer numbers. So, um the 2,761 were approved. We had 524 transfers denied and then 5,939 were categor categorized as invalid. And what invalid meant was that a parent potentially applied for their
048own zone school or they applied for the wrong grade level. And so those areas we we marked as invalid. Um the other areas that we we looked at is that we had a large number of families um trying to apply like outside of their their zone campus for like Jimmy Carter for instance. Um with our current uh transfer numbers um you see a high rate of approval because of just like Dr. Little mentioned the board policy. We are keeping our students um where they're at in their current transfers. For our school action transfers, we had uh students looking 214 were approved. Those were students that chose not to go to their new zone school um and requested an additional transfer. Um before I continue on, as a reminder, we are still holding true to our
049policy with criteria. So if our students didn't meet it through academics um as well as attendance or discipline um UIL or any kind of falsification those did play into factor when we were reviewing these our new transfers. So those are in district students that um are choosing to move to another school. We did approve 70 uh seven approved for that. And so you'll start seeing a lower approval rate as we're really holding firm to our new policy and ensuring that our students um are all students are um really spaced out to every school and not just a select school. Um and then also our new transfers returning to district is 39. Um and then 21 denied. But I want to point out that we did not deny our own students from our campus. we just
050denied the students from going to a different campus other than their zone. So, I'll speak in a little bit about um our students returning back to us that did apply for those transfers as well. And then the last part with our specialty schools were our students that were applying for uh Jimmy Carter but are either um did not were not part of the lottery um as well or um they just chose the wrong school. And then of course some families did complete the transfer application and didn't need to. Um and so we had about a little over 4,000 families apply for a transfer and didn't and didn't warrant a transfer. So looking at our data um as I mentioned we had quite a few uh transfer numbers and so I want to call out four
051really big trends that we saw through through the data dive that we did. there was a concentration of select campuses chosen for a transfer. So specifically in these campuses were Kamarina Memorial and Palm View. Um approving those requests would have improved um really uh such requests would undermine the whole point of building strong campuses and so we were very intentional about denying specific areas to ensure that all schools were strong schools. the incoming ninth, sixth, and ninth grade transitions. That was another large number that we had that came from students wanting to transition out of their zoned school to a different middle or high school. Um, we denied these specific requests because we want to keep students in their zone feeder schools. Um, the only um separation to that is the PEK if they chose
052a PEK or specialty program at another campus. Another third trend is that we saw that school action transfer families there was about um a little over,00 families applied for transfers um and including out of those were about 337 true transfers which 64% of those transfers were approved by us. So what we were trying to balance there was a strong demand for school choice but also really staying aligned to the board policy. And the last box, which I think is a very exciting box, is that we had a total of 145 students returning back to La Hoya campuses, really reflecting our increased family confidence in La Hoya and the stability our district has been providing. So that was a really exciting number and that number continues to build um as well. So just also looking ahead
053on our key milestones, we are in April, April already and prek registration is open and rolling and we have kindergarten roundup underway. Um we are sending transfer notifications this week to families via email and mail as well. We are consistently verifying residency and that progression is continuing um on. Um in June we are hoped to really sum up our impact of enrollment reach um outreach um and next steps of continuous improvement with the transfer and then uh recruitment efforts of course are continuing through underway through summer and we are really proud of the outcomes that we did with our process this year and some of our key milestones that we made. >> So on that any questions >> members of the board >> president I have a question. Um, Miss Candelario, for the students that
054are returning to the district, do we have any additional data that'll give us insights into how long they were gone? Is it one year and then they're coming back? And are these students that moved to neighboring districts? Do we know that information? >> We have some information of where they're coming back from. Uh, we don't we could look into how many years they have been gone. Um, which could definitely be part of the impact report. Um but we do have where they have and uh we've seen there was quite a bit of like Sherland mission um when we were reviewing the specific schools those were the two areas that they were returning back from. >> Thank you. >> No problem. >> Anyone else? Would you say on page on page 37 it references the number
055of new students that have come back to the district? It was 145. >> 145. >> Were the majority of those high school students that were coming from charter schools our neighboring charter school in town? I know what you're getting at play football or something. >> Um, it's a it was a mixture. Um, it was definitely a mix like I said, Cherylyn mission. We we are receiving students back from idea. So, that is something that has been coming up through that and the phone calls I receive since I'm also part of student services. So, uh, we're getting our students back. >> Good. That's good. That's good to hear. Anyone else? It's a good report. Thank you. Thank you very much for both of you. Uh, we're going to go ahead and move on, but before I
056do, let the record show that for minutes purposes that Dr. Sorenson joined us at 6:12 p.m. this evening. Next item on the agenda is 6.2 Student Achievement Conditions, 1.1 Strategic Academic Interventions, Lone Star Gold. Dr. Little. >> Yes, sir. So, we are coming tonight to specifically give a look at how our four superintendent constraint schools have been doing thus far this year and provide an update on our Northstar goal uh and some language cleanup that we need to do to our Northstar goal. So, we'll start with the superintendent constraints. obviously a big part of how we're pursuing uh all of what is the bedrock of LSG which is our vision our mission our goals and our our GPMS ultimately leading us to that place where we've got 90 plus% of students in AMB rated schools
057so quick overview of what we have here I'm going to show you data on our four constraint schools as a reminder that Sigin and Garza are two ACE campuses as well as PA and Dr. signs middle school. Uh we are going to see progress in general across these four campuses. You're going to see a bit more progress at the elementary level than we're going to see uh with signs at the middle school level, but we are seeing progress nonetheless. Uh and we're going to end by looking at how all of this relates to the Northstar goal. So, I'm actually going to lay out some scenarios for you and the community uh to establish a range of where we could end up this year based on our performance and what we're already seeing with these schools
058and the school actions. So, quick reminder, this constraint says the superintendent shall not allow conditions that decrease student achievement. So, we're specifically looking at campuses who have had multiple years of DRF ratings. That's how those four schools were chosen as superintendent constraint schools this year because they had those multiple years of of low performance. Earlier this year, back in the fall, I talked to you about how we're specifically supporting these four schools. So, just wanted to quickly remind us of what that looks like. Obviously, they get all the basic supports that every school gets. So when we talk about our use of high-quality instructional materials, the spot checks that we're doing, the support from our our partners, all of that applies to these schools as well. And there's two other things. Garza and Sigin are
059fully participating in the ACE accelerated campus excellence model. Uh quick shout out to Garza because we learned in the last month that through the observations that TEA does along with Texas Tech University, uh Garza is looking like the only new elementary A school in the state to be fully adhering to the ACE model in its first year of implementation. So we are incredibly grateful for and excited about what that school is doing. >> Board President. >> Yes, Dr. Sornson. Can you say that one more time? >> I sure can. >> Just so that everyone has clarity on what La Hoya ISD is doing in comparison to the state. >> I should give the microphone to Miss Ortiz because she certainly has put in a lot of sweat equity into this. Uh but Garza, let me
060back up one more second. As an official ACE campus means they got school action funding at Garza. Remember, we locally funded and sort of operated SIGEN, but Garza was part of school turnaround from the state's perspective. They get outside observations and visits. Some of that is from Texas Tech University. Some of that is from staff at TEA. So, they've had multiple people on site this year looking at what they're doing and then they give us data back and a report. Uh a few weeks ago in one of our check-ins with them, uh we were told that Garza is looking like the only new elementary ACE campus in the state. There were something like 40, I believe, that is looking to implement all parts of the ACE model in its first year. So we're seeing the
061highest results from those oper observations and the best feedback in terms of program fidelity and implementation. >> THAT'S AWESOME. SO, DR. LITTLE, before you proceed, you referenced uh Miss Ortiz. Tell me what her involvement is. I mean, just share with us. >> Absolutely. Uh Miss Ortiz, media Ortiz, you can wave at them and say hello. She is one of our executive directors of school leadership, but everybody on the academics and school leadership team always has another hat uh that they wear. And the other hat that she is wearing for us this year, and I get the letters wrong every time, but effectively she's serving as our turnaround lead from TEA and regions one perspective. So you might remember when you approved the local improvement plans, uh turnaround improvement plans and those action plans, the tip
062tap lip presentation that we gave with all the acronyms. She's really worked closely with all of those schools to put those plans together and to make sure that they are following through with implementation for Garza, which has a TAP plan, a turnaround plan. It also has additional ACE requirements. She serves as that school's EDSL, which means she's the principal supervisor, but is also worked closely with TEA through the oversight and monitoring of ACE implementation at that school. >> Thank you, Miss Ortiz. Thank you very much. That was very nice of you, Dr. Little. That was very nice of you to acknowledge your work. So, thank you for that. >> Absolutely. Now, what I will say about Sigin is we have been doing the exact same structural work at Sigin. It doesn't get the extra visits
063because from TEA's perspective, it's not officially part of school actions. It will be for next year though. We did get the grant uh for them for next year. So, we'll get similar uh both support and monitoring in that way. But both schools have been doing ACE in a similar way uh this school year. Now for all four schools, the far right column is an additional support that we provided to these campuses. It's called Breakthrough Results. It's a partnership with the district management group which is a spin-off uh from a professor at Harvard who goes out and supports a variety of district and state efforts across the country including here in Texas. And so what they've been doing is they've established specific teams within the campus that are getting coaching support on quick continuous improvement. So
064a quick example of this, say I'm a second grade teacher and I'm trying to get my students to be able to identify uh onset rhyme. So like the initial sound of words and we're really struggling with that. I'm going to set a quick goal for how many students I want to make progress on that in the next three weeks. And these coaches aren't giving them feedback on how to better teach it. They're giving feedback on how to create a continuous improvement cycle with the data, testing an intervention, and seeing how it works. So, all four schools have had teams going through that breakthrough results uh model thus far this year. And that's been an additional layer of support that we have put for uh these four superintendent constraint schools. We'll see the data in a
065second. I'll give you some more context on on how that's playing out. So, we're going to walk through each school individually. So they all have their own slide. This starts with Dr. SCS in the middle school. Just some orientation because every slide looks the same. We've got the four core content areas. So you'll see math, reading, science, and social studies data. This is specifically uh for the middle school obviously looking at the star tested areas. So not every grade shows up for science and social studies. You got two comparisons on these slides. So let's look at the top left for math. uh for example, we're looking at map data first. So that's looking at this year's middleofear results compared to last year's middleofyear results. And then next to that you have BM, which stands for
066benchmark. That's that practice star test that we took back in February, a fully released star test comparing again how we did this year to how we did last year. So we see in eighth grade that they've made progress uh year-over-year in eighth grade math. Haven't made the progress needed in sixth and seventh grade here. So that's been part of our ongoing focus of support for that school. Reading is a bit more mixed. Eighth grade again more solid. This is true at the school in terms of what we have seen consistently uh as we've been on campus and as we've done spot checks. Uh sixth and seventh grade is a bit mixed in reading. You got seventh grade flat in benchmarks, down in math, and then both are down at the sixth grade level. Science and
067social studies more positive overall. You see growth regardless of which assessment we're looking at. Uh and in social studies, you see pretty strong growth. Uh actually 10 points in in eighth grade social studies. The other thing I want to remind us of right now is just a a note about the benchmark itself. when we presented data, I think at the last meeting, we shared with you our benchmark comparisons year-over-year. That is a a full star exam. So, it's just like what students took today for reading, for example. And so, for math, science, and social studies in particular, there are things on those star exams that haven't been taught yet. Like, you just haven't gotten to them at that point in February, but it still is fairly an applesto apples comparison year-over-year because that's generally true
068uh in each school year. As I mentioned earlier, we're going to see more positive things at the elementary level than we see at the middle school level. So, as I go through the next three schools, you're going to start to see more green showing up overall uh on these slides. And we will start with Sigin. Again, this is one of our two ACE campuses. You see a ton of green on here, whether we're looking at map or we're looking at star benchmark. Obviously, calling out third grade math is an area of focus for Sigin. We take that star exam in two weeks. We have been pushing hard with our campuses on how to make sure that they are very tightly and very acutely focused on exactly what students need in these final days and moments
069of preparation. So this is an example like getting super clear with those third grade students on what skills they need the most support with and ensuring that they're getting that. Uh but again you see overall here 11 out of 13 tested areas are showing improvement at sigin year-over-year. Uh this is a school that have been declining for the last three academic years in the district. And so we can start to see that turn around. Uh Garza is very similar. You got uh improvement unequivocally in 10 out of 13 areas. You've got one area that's fifth grade reading where it looks super strong in math. it's, you know, flat in benchmarks. So, we're calling that mixed. Uh, but again, you've got significant improvement here for, uh, our school, which was the lowest rated school in the
070district last year. So, again, we've heard what you're doing with ACE is meeting the mark from a program standpoint, from outside perspective and observers, and we're seeing that data start to follow uh, as well. And then last one, PA. This is not an ACE campus, but this was one of our superintendent constraint schools. You see improvement here in nine out of 13 areas. So again, lots of green across the board. One thing I didn't say about the other two, but just to explain the gray blanks uh for math and reading. Remember, we don't have benchmark data. We don't have star equivalent data in the K2 space. So that's why we're only showing the map data uh here as a comparison. So with that, I want to sort of land with what does that mean in
071terms of our northstar? And the first thing we want to do is do a little language cleanup here. So remember, our northstar goal is to get to 90% or more students attending AM rated campuses. That's really the big thing that we are working to achieve in all of our work with our strategic plan over this five-year period. When we first wrote this, it was before results last year. And so the way it's written, this is super technical, but the way it's written just isn't technically correct. And so the 90% focus is not changing. What we're doing is removing the increase by 6% point because that doesn't really reflect our starting point at at where we are today. And so that's just what we wanted to acknowledge for the board and the community. We're still committed
072to 90% plus. Uh but we're cleaning up the language to make that more clear about how we are really going about getting there. And then a couple quick reminders for you on where we are now before we look at scenarios on where we can be. Uh we've shared versions of this slide through our our quality schools updates before, shared them through the school action plans as well. As we sit here today, based on last year's accountability results, 47% of our students are in AMB rated schools, thus the changing the 6% part in the in the language. So you see this on the left by student enrollment. You see it on the right by just raw distribution of campuses. The other thing we can notice and what we've seen through all of our our data presentations
073thus far is the concentration of our low performing campuses is at the elementary level. If we look at, you know, where our DNF rated campuses are right now, that is concentrated uh primarily at the elementary level. our school action work plus the ACE work that we're doing is certainly uh changing that. But that's where we are. The next slide, I'm going to come back to next steps in a minute. Uh is showing you where we can be at the end of this year. There's quite a few things going on on the slide. So, let me just walk us through it. At the very top, you see current 2526. That blue 47% is what I just showed you. 47% of students right now today are in A and B-rated campuses. 25% of our students right now
074today are in D or F-rated campuses based on last year's results. What we want to see is obviously that blue bar get as close to 100 as possible and the red bar get to zero. We don't want any students in DNF- rated schools. Everything below the dotted line are different scenarios based on the results we may get for this school year and they kind of build on each other. So, we're going to go from top to bottom. The first thing that is already true, if nothing else changes, is the school action decisions that you approved automatically improve our AM rate by six percentage points. So, it moves us from 47 to 53 just with those school closures and reassignments. And it reduces the DNF rate from 25 to 17. So, nothing else changes. No, no
075school gets better this year to next year. We've already made some progress towards that northstar goal with the school actions. That's obviously not sufficient and not enough and not what we're working for though. So the next line is ACE campuses approved. So if just Garza and Sigin meet their wildly important goal this year, which is to go from F to C, you see that 53 stays the same because they didn't quite get to that ARB level, but the D and F rate drops to 12%. So we would have already cut in half the percentage of students at DNF rated campuses for next year with just the school action changes and both Garza and Sigin meeting their wig. That gets better if La Hoya High School meets its wig, which is to go back to a
076B-rated high school. We are pushing them real hard uh to get there. They are our only C-rated high school campus uh at this point. So if La Hoya High School alone gets back to a B, that adds 10 points to our Northstar goal. So it jumps to 63. I reminded Principal Flores of that just a couple of days ago. And then we get to the no DNF school. So if every school currently rated D or F gets at minimum to a C, we eliminate any students at DNF campuses. We don't change the A and B rate because again they're at the C level. They didn't move into the AM level yet, but we completely eliminate students at the lowest performing campuses for next year. Best case scenario is every student or not every student, sorry,
077every campus meets their wildly important goal. We worked with campuses back in September and October to set some pretty ambitious uh goals for the year. So that's them defining ultimately by grade level and content, but really at the campus level, here's where we want to be in our achievement. If every school in La Hoya ISD meets that wildly important goal or wig, as you hear us call it, that'll increase us to 85% of students in AM campuses with no students in D and F campuses. to every presentation I've given you in the last two months with that question mark on the right hand side of the slide. We don't know if that's actually going to happen yet because we just started testing star today. We won't get the data until we sort of end the
078school year, but this is what we've been working on. We just wanted to better visualize for you and the community what that could mean in terms of outcomes and opportunities for our students. So with all of that said, uh as we mentioned, we are live in game time today. Students took star reading today. They take uh science and social studies next week followed by math uh the third week of the month. Every single one of those days matters. Like we are talking about this in terms of seconds matter, not just minutes and hours. Students showing up is super important. Uh attendance is critical. I'm very happy to say that our attendance has been quite good uh over the past couple of weeks, actually hitting 97 98% attendance on some days. So, thank you families for
079prioritizing your students being here, getting those last drops of instruction and opportunity. And then, as I mentioned last time, it doesn't end with STAR. We still have five weeks of school left. When Star is over, uh we have endofear map. We've got some other important things for high school students like AP exams, IB certification tests, and so we're going strong till the very end. And then to our earlier presentation, we're going to pick it up and keep working hard and have fun in the summer. Uh, but this gives you a sense of where we are right now and what our possibilities are for this school year. >> Members of the board, any questions for Dr. Little? >> Dr. Little. So, um I've seen the videos promoting our upcoming tests that are taking place and I
080I thought it was really good how we were talking about nourishment and resting and all that. So, what's the atmosphere like right now? I mean, people motivated. I mean, you're certainly motivated. So, >> I'm really motivated. >> I want take that energy with us. >> I want real time results. Like, I want to go log into the computer right now and see how we did today. And that's just not possible, unfortunately. I would say as we've been having conversations with principles, APS, teachers, as we've been on campus, you know, folks are wanting to do their best. That's always been one of the bright spots about La Hoya ISD is people show up every day really wanting to do well uh for the students they serve. We have worked this year to tighten that focus to
081really understand what that means in terms of urgency. And so that's like ramped up more and more. Uh, but I think folks were really taking today seriously. Thankfully, we had a smooth administration of the test. Sometimes it's not always smooth. You can have computer issues. You have lots of things going on. Thank you to Chief Masi and team uh who's a big part of that. Like that wasn't a problem today. And so students are going to come back tomorrow, shift gears a little bit into the next content, and we're going to keep going. So obviously I I wasn't when I was in elementary school, we didn't have such exams. So tell me what what do they is it a Monday through Friday thing? Is it a Tuesday and Wednesday? >> Very good question. That has
082changed a lot and it's going to change again. Uh so right now what's true across Texas is these are really specific days that we set aside based on the content. So today was reading. So, every 3rd through 10th grader today, including some 11th and 12th graders who had to redo it, we're taking the the reading test. Next Tuesday, we'll do uh science and and part of social studies. Next Thursday, we'll wrap up the rest of that um suite. And then the following week on the 21st, we'll do math. The state sets up windows so districts get to choose their specific days in that window. Uh and we really try to be thoughtful about how we spread that out. like students can't just crank this out three days in a row and do super well. So
083that's why we do it over a three-week period uh with space in between. It also helps better tailor the support specifically for that content area. So again transitioning a bit today from reading more into science and social studies for next week and those reading teachers still have value add in those spaces because students are still asked to write in science and social studies. And so that's reinforcement that again it's a whole team effort that our teachers and teams can provide. >> Thank you for that. Thank you for that explanation. Anyone else >> for president? >> Yes, Dr. Sason. >> So to add to um the answer to your question about how people are feeling out there. Um Blanca and I have been doing the after the bell conversations um quite a bit around the district.
084And so I'll build on your La Hoya High School example. So, we were at La Hoya yesterday um for after the bell conversations and the preponderance of teachers that I met with were EOCC teachers. Um I had some freshman teachers sitting there um English one and uh algebra and then I had some US history teachers um also sitting there and they were confident. It was really great to have conversation with them. They over and over again they felt like my students are prepared. My students are ready. I feel really good about my kids this year. And so Blanc and I kept looking at each other like, "All right, all right." U because you don't always get that. Sometimes, you know, a teacher will say like, "I don't know if these kids are ready this year
085and we've been doing everything, but but overwhelmingly um so you hear that, Mr. Bades." um overwhelmingly the teachers that I met with at La Hoya High School yesterday and then were confident in their students readiness and preparedness. And so when your teacher is confident like that's a different feel and then today um we were at Camarina and Memorial and again we walked in how did testing go today? Principal said flawless. Flawless was the answer at Memorial. Um, and the teachers felt really confident in all that they had put into students and all that, you know, their students were ready to demonstrate. And again, Camarina, our A-rated campus from last year, nothing but the best. Um, they again overwhelmingly felt really good about the administration um, and confident in the work that they had put in
086to prepare their students so that their students could demonstrate their knowledge. And so actually being out there right now talking with teachers, being on campuses and really hearing how folks are feeling, it's really refreshing because most of the conversations have been about academics and instruction and really wanting to do their very best so that student outcomes improve. >> That's exciting. That's great news as well. Dr. Little, thank you for all the work and we continue to support you. let us know if there's anything that we can support you with and uh if if uh I mean I was thinking about coming uh to the campus and just to see how it goes because I've never been to one of these tests but just to you know acknowledge like what the students are doing or are
087they in the classroom but I think you've explained it well. >> We'll be happy to set one up if you want to. >> No because I'm afraid I might have to take the test and I will I am not prepared. So thank you Dr. Little. >> Yeah. Somebody agreed. All right. Thank you Dr. Little. Looking forward to the results. Uh next item on the agenda 6.3 Lonear governance uh our time use tracker report March 2025 um March 25th 20 2026 and this will be done by Mari Alzando Mari >> good evening good evening president Alvarez uh Dr. Senson, members of the board, public uh present, and those tuned in. Um I am pleased to present the March 25th uh time news tracker report. This this work is grounded in accordance with the lonear governance framework
088which is which which is continuous improvement model of governing teams board and superintendent who choose to focus intensely and unapologetically on one primary objective improving student outcomes. As part of this implementation of LSG and student outcome focused governance approach, we intensely monitor meeting time to prioritize discussions on student outcomes, track progress towards board goals, and assess the adult actions that influence those outcomes. So for the March 25th meeting, please refer to the blue column on the left side of the report, which reflects time dedicated to student outcomes. As shown in the report, we spent 19 minutes of the meeting time on goals one through three and associated goals progress measures including benchmark data presented by Dr. D. Sorry. Uh so now please refer to the green column which reflects the time spent on adult behavior
089minutes totaling totaling 51 minutes in this category. So moving on to the center of the report, uh the total meeting time is recorded as 114 minutes overall. 61.40% of the meeting time was devoted to student outcomes and adult behavior minutes combined, which 16.67% specifically focused on student outcome minutes. So with this, we conclude the March 25th time use tracker report reflecting the board's continued commitment to aligning its work with improving student outcomes in accordance with LSD. Do we have any questions? >> Members of the board, any questions? >> No. >> Dr. Sa, you have anything you want to add? >> No. Thank you, Marty, for doing this. You're doing a wonderful job. >> Thank you. >> Yes. Thank you, Marty. Thank you very much. and thank you for reminding us uh about the importance of
090of reporting student outcomes during these meetings that we have. Uh next agenda item is our close session. >> Oh, excuse me. Yeah, I'm sorry, sir. Let me let me get to that portion. Yes, thank you very much. Um, Vice President Pena, our next agenda item is seven. Uh, we will now move into the consent agenda item. Do I have a motion? I move to approve consent agenda. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. >> Ladies and gentlemen, the next item on the agenda is our close session. This closed meeting will be held for the purposes authorized by the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code section 551.001, 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, 551.076, 076 551.129 and 551.0821 concerning any and
091all purposes permitted by the act including but not limited to the sections of purposes listed below. We are now going into close session and it is >> 7:16 p.m. Are you ready? Ladies and gentlemen, we are back from close session and it is >> 7:27 p.m. >> Item number 10 is action and discussion item 10.1 hearing to consider recommendation on independent hearing examiner regarding proposed termination of Pedro Sorita Soreta pursuant to board policy DV DFD. The board may now go into close session to deliberance and discuss this matter with legal counsel pursuant to Texas government code section 51.071 and 501.074. >> The time now is >> 7:28 p.m. on the evening of April 8, 2020. and the board of managers of the La Hoya Independent School District is convened in open session at the request
092of Pedro Sorita Jr. to hear oral arguments in the matter of La Hoya ISC versus Pedro Sorita Jr. Texas Education Agency docket number 057- LH-12-2025 before the independent hearing examiner Javier Gonzalez. The pro the purpose of the hearing is to allow the board to hear and consider oral arguments from both the administration and the employee Mr. Pedro Sorita Jr. in the matter of proposed termination of Mr. Sorita's chapter 21 term contract. As a reminder, the board voted to propose the termination of Mr. Soreta's contract as its meaning at its meeting on November 19th, 2025. Mr. timely requested a hearing before an independent hearing examiner appointed by the Texas Education Agency. The evidentiary hearing took place on January 16, 2026 and February 24th, 2026. After consideration of the evidence and arguments of both parties, the hearing
093examiner issued his its findings of fact, conclusions of law, and recommendations to the board. board has an has had an opportunity to review the record of the hearing and the hearing examiner's decision prior to tonight's meeting. Miss Selena Vincent from the law firm of Thompson and Horton LLP is present to advise the board. For the record, will the administration's representative please identify themselves? >> Thank you, President. I will be presenting on behalf of the administration. Just to correct what you stated, Mr. Garcia is here to administration in this role. >> Thank you very much for the clarification. And who is present on behalf of the employee? Thank you very much. >> You got it. Yes, sir. Thank you. Are we ready? We will proceed. At this time, I will outline the procedure to be followed
094for this hearing. Pursuant to board policy DBF DFD local, both the administration and the employee will be allowed 10 minutes to present oral arguments to the board. Beginning with the administration policy DFD local provides, the administration may reserve a portion of its time for a rebuttal argument. I will serve as the timekeeper. When your time expires, I will signal you and you must stop your presentation. After the conclusion of the oral arguments, the board may ask clarifying questions to either party. Members of the board are not subject to questioning by the presenters. Neither is either party. All arguments and questions are being transcribed by a certified court reporter. When presentations and questions are concluded, the board will excuse the parties and convene in close session with its attorney to receive legal advice regarding this matter.
095The board's consultation with its attorneys is confidential and will not be transcribed by the court reporter. At this time, I will ask that all of those present silence their cell phones before we proceed with the meeting. Are there any questions before we begin? By law, the board's decision on this matter must be based on the contents of the record of the record of the hearing before the independent hearing examiner and the arguments presented at tonight's hearing. It's there is there any board member who feels that he or she is unable to render a fair and impartial decision based on the record and the parties arguments that will be shown tonight. Okay, we will now receive oral arguments. Would the administration like to reserve any time for rebuttal? >> Yes, please. I'd like to reserve two
096minutes. >> Yes. So, Dr. Sorenson will be keeping time. You will have two minutes for rebuttal. Okay. Got it. >> So, it is it is uh noted that you will have two minutes. Okay. >> Okay. Okay, you may proceed. Again, you do have 10 minutes. >> Okay, members of the board, good evening. So, I don't need to talk into the microphone then. >> Okay. Good evening. Um, I am here on behalf of ISD um to summarize the evidence that was presented before the independent jury examiner regarding the district proposed termination of Mr. As you heard President Alvarez um just say your decision is confined to what the record holds and the record is before you in a very thick binder. Um unfortunately I am not going to obviously go through every single exhibit, but I
097will tell you that the independent hearing examiner who was tasked with reviewing the evidence did actually consider all of this listen to five witnesses including Mr. Zarita and made his determination and his recommendation which I believe is the most important thing you have because it summarizes um that testimony and that evidence. That is going to be your last exhibit that I want to refer you to. It's um exhibit number 29. And again, what the hearing examiner was tasked with doing was listening to the evidence fairly um following the law and then coming up with a recommendation. His recommendation is that there was good cause there is good cause to terminate Mr. Zarita and that is based on um the fact that Mr. Zarita um showed incredibly poor judgment in his interaction with a student whose
098name we're not going to say because she's entitled to privacy, confidentiality under FURPA and because of the sensitive nature of what she went through um during this this altercation incident with Mr. Zarita. Um the student was in his general math class. Mr. Zarita is a math teacher, probably a very good math teacher. um he's assigned to general math classes and also upper level advanced math classes. On this particular day, an incident with this um young lady, Mr. Zarita decided to get out his tele telephone and personally record the student. You actually have a recording. The recording you can view it. It's very short. Um you can go back with the attorney and review the recording. You're allowed to look at all the evidence. um got very close to this student as she was attempting to
099solve a math problem. It is clear on the video she's very uncomfortable trying to solve the math problem. She's having a lot of difficulty and it is what some would consider or classify a very simple problem. It was addition. Okay. Um she I believe is in the 11th grade. Uh and you can hear Mr. Zarita saying come on come on. You you can do it. You can do it. Come on. You don't know what that is. You don't know what that is. And he talks in English and Spanish. And in Spanish, he says to her, "I'm not recording you." Um, and she hears that and believes him because she's he's her teacher. Um, and you could tell she's she's saying, "I'm not good at math. Uh, my math is not mathing today. I can't do
100it." He's he kind of, you know, chuckles a little bit. Um, and then she finally does it and he says, "See, there you go. You got it." Well, as if that wasn't bad enough, the next day during his AP class, when that student was not present and in that class, he shared that video of that student. Shared that video to his AP class and remarked, "Don't be like this student." On the video, you can't see the student's close-up face, but you can see her body. You can hear her voice. You can see parts of her face. You can see her hands. Well, of course, people in that AP class, students recognized her. And of course, students in that AP class shared with the other students who it was. So then, of course, those students went
101and made fun of this young lady because she couldn't solve the math. Add insult to injury. As the student is walking by Mr. Zarita's class. The day he displays it to his AP class, he says to her in a laughing voice, "You're going to be tick- tock famous." Tick-tock famous for not being able to solve a math problem. Tick tock famous for an incident that occurred where she should feel safe, protected. She was clearly vulnerable and he took advantage of that. The hearing examiner heard from her. I can tell you it was difficult. She was upset. The day that she found out that that video was portrayed and displayed to other students, she went to the bathroom crying and called her mother. Her mother immediately came up to school and demanded to talk to Mr.
102Zarita. Luckily, staff had the good knowledge to say, "Not a good idea. I'm not going to let that happen." And then the student didn't come to school for several days. Mom was crushed. Mom testified. Mom was worried about her daughter. Mom was angry. How could that teacher do that to my daughter? What if that video went viral? Why was he recording her? Lots of questions and no answers. No answers. And what you're going to see is that in this recommendation, the um hearing examiner outlines for for you um because remember he is doing this to recommend to the board. He has to go through the law and check off does this meet the good cause um that you are required to have to terminate Mr. Zarita's contract and he said yes. So he identifies what
103violations there are, what legal violations Mr. Zarita is responsible for by taking the actions he took. Um, and he identifies on page 14, you don't have to look at it now, but if you want to write that down, you can go back, like I said, in close session. Um, page 14, paragraph 40, the Texas Education Code, section 2609 requires district employees to gain parental approval before making a video of a student. That didn't happen. That's paragraph 40. Paragraph 41. La Hoya ISD's employee handbook in the Educators Code of Ethics requires employees to recognize and respect the rights of students. That didn't happen. Clearly, there was no respect for this young lady when he went and portrayed and displayed that video. really no respect for her for getting up that close to her and recording her
104struggling in a place where she should be learning in a place where it should be a positive environment. Hearing examiner writes, this is not a legal section of a code. He writes himself. This is his verbiage. Recording a high school student struggling to perform basic math computations and showing that video to her peers is not respectful to the student. Not obtaining parental consent is also a violation. Paragraph 42. La Hoya ISD's employee handbook and educators code of ethics prohibit employees from intentionally, knowingly or recklessly treating a student or minor in a manner that adversely affects or endangers the learning, physical health, mental health or safety of the student. There was no doubt based on the evidence and you can tell that the hearing examiner found that the students mental health was affected. La Hoya ISD
105employee handbook and educators code of ethics require employees like Zarita and this is actually in the co um the code of ethics to maintain appropriate professional educator student relationships and boundaries based on a reasonably prud prudent educator standard. >> Mr. Vincson your time is up again you do have two minutes for a rebuttal. >> Thank you. And then he follows that with respondent fail to maintain appropriate educator students. >> Your time is up. >> Okay. Thank you. Again, reminder that you do have two minutes for a rebuttal. >> Yes. Thank you, sir. >> So, Mr. Garcia, the attorney or the employees attorney representative, which would be Mr. Garcia or Mrs. Either one of you can go ahead and make the 10 minutes. Mr. Garcia, do you have time that you would like to leave for
106rebuttal? >> No, your honor. Uh, >> sure. I'll take it. >> I'll take the honor thing. Would you like time for rebuttal, sir? >> Mr. President, I do not. >> Okay. Thank you. Yes, sir. But >> I will need a moment just to set this up. >> Yes, sir. That for you. >> Okay. >> I've got a little timer up here. Yes, sir. Whenever you're ready. All right. >> Mr. Surita. Thank you. Uh, I'm ready. >> Okay. You may proceed, Miss. >> Thank you. Uh, I'd like to begin with the PowerPoint there. And the question uh before you is just because good cause was found by the hearing examiner does not thereby mean that the school board has to follow the recommendation of the superintendent. I don't want you to think that because the independent
107hearing examiner found good cause or or or found that the school district had good cause does not mean that you have to follow the recommendation. Mr. Surita executed a letter of resignation at my office earlier this week. The school district refused to accept it through its attorney. The details in this are going to matter. I'm going to I had planned for 15 to 20 minutes. I'm going to try to condense it into the 10. The sequence of events Mr. Sudita exercises right to due process. The Ihe makes findings that good cause exists. The sequence of events. This is something that Mr. Zuda has been teaching with the only school district he's ever known for the last almost 20 years. This would have been his 20th year. Uh before you today are some of the students
108that have had him as his as their teacher, uh some of his family members that are here because the same way that this could have gone viral and blown up for uh the the minor, the 11th grader, it blew up for Mr. Surita as well because what people heard and what people saw is Mr. Surita was recording a female teacher. Even Miss Era you will learn based on the testimony uh and the evidence before you thought that this was some sort of inappropriate recording of a female student and you will learn and you will see in the evidence before you that she was relieved when she found out that it was a student solving a math problem. On September 15th, Mr. Surita records. You'll be able to watch the video back, but there's a screenshot
109of it there. In effect, that's all you see. He played that video, and this is where he made the mistake. On Tuesday the 16th, he plays the video for an AP AP class. Imagine a classroom full of high school students. Think about the noise that's going on there. He sees students that are copying off of one another and he makes a lapse in judgment and shows it to them and said, "Don't be like this student." didn't play the whole video. One of the students in the class probably recognized the student's purse that was on the floor and says, "Surita showing us you solving a math problem." People panic, parents panic, and the school district orders Miss Alanisera to send Mr. Surita to central office. Miss Alanisera is relieved. This is her own testimony. I saw
110the first few seconds of it. uh it was a handwriting I guess uh of solving a problem and and then uh and then he went to HR because that's what she was told to do. So I think that when Mr. uh uh said that it was she was embarrassed. You're here because a student got embarrassed. That's why Mr. Sudita is being sought to be terminated. Think about that. How many students do you have? How many kids are going to be embarrassed and come before you for termination? Is that how low the bar is going to be for you all to terminate someone? Think about that before you do it. You have no evidence that Mr. Sudita did this in order to embarrass a child. Correct. The principal on the campus. Correct. He talked about the
111discussion. I have kids that are struggling with you. Mr. Surita had previously just two weeks before spoken to Miss Alanera. I have kids that cannot do simple math. She didn't believe him. He recorded this initially in order to show her that there are kids that are struggling. She acknowledged that in her testimony. In fact, he's encouraging her to solve the math problem. Isn't that correct? Correct. Eventually, she does solve the math problem. The problem here is he went and showed it to the next class. He should have never done that. We accept that. He accepts that. He accepted it in his testimony. You would agree that in that recording the student is not identified. Correct. Correct. How many times in this case, how many times the teacher recorded a student, have you been trained to
112respond to a situation like that? Not to my knowledge. You would agree that teaching walking a student through a math problem in regular classroom instruction, the recording that is that evidence that Mr. Sudita was walking a student through a math problem. I would agree with that. You would agree that finding qualified teachers, especially in math, is not an easy thing. I agree with that. You were never able to follow with progressive discipline instruction uh uh motives like growth plans that most teachers get the benefit of putting 20 years into education. Mr. Sudita was cut off at the head. He was sent to HR, sent home, and never allowed to come back because someone was embarrassed. You could have given him a corrective action plan, a growth performance improvement plan. In this case, you didn't even
113have the option because that option was taken from you. I was told to send him to central office. She never saw him again, never spoke to him again. And in fact, the second recommendation that you're going to see from the IHC in in your in the in the in what the attorney for the school district spoke to you about recommends that the school district and administration take progressive measures rather than terminating someone that has 20 years of experience. Sorry. So any of these progressive discipline methods that are available to the school district, they were not followed. Not by me, sir. Verbal warning, no. Written warning, no. Corrective action plan, no. My question to you is specific. How many times since you've uh since he's begun, think about this. He's been out of that classroom since
114September. How many times have they had a certified teacher? For the most part, no. Those kids in those in all seven of those periods do not have a certified math teacher. Think about that. His evaluations 2022 23 24 25 distinguished. Accomplished accomplished. It's in it's in the evidence before you. Accomplished. Mr. Leonel Perez was his former principal. The learning environment in his classroom. Accomplished. Accomplished. accomplished communication distinguished distinguished classroom environment distinguished accomplished does do 20 years not matter one lapse in judgment over 48 hours is going to is cause for termination I submit to you that it's not teacher creates a fun and respectful environment that encourages risktaking and peer recognition right this I'm this is in the evidence before you. These are his evaluations. Accomplished, accomplished, distinguished. We go on and on and on.
115He testifies. Mr. Surita testifies. I'm going to rush through this because I'm running out of time. Uh he testifies on his own behalf. He says he didn't play the entire video. He doesn't even think half of the kids, the majority of the kids didn't even hear it. But the ones who did, mind you, at the ex at the hearing before the hearing examiner, not one student, not one person who was in that class came to testify about what was actually played. The only human being that did that was Mr. Surita himself. Mr. Mr. uh uh Bonel Perez who worked with him as a principal and as an assistant principal was in charge of math speaks about Mr. Surita's character. He's good for kids. I was an assistant principal. He worked there for 12 years before
116he retired. He was in charge of the math department. If someone told you that Mr. Surita intentionally, knowingly, or recklessly embarrassed a student, would you believe it? No. Someone that was relatable to students? Yes. Someone that would harm a student's feelings? No. Would you knowing would he knowingly harm a student's feelings? No, sir. Would he recklessly harm a student's feelings? No. As to Mr. Sudita's character, his character as a teacher, as a person that you've known for what you've testified 12 years based on his character, is it someone that you believe is good or bad for children? He's good for kids. And after today, based on the superintendent's recommendation, he's going to be terminated. Why? Because the school district won't accept his resignation. Why? Because he exercised his right to due process to have a
117hearing. He's ready to resign. I'm asking you to accept that resignation. What changed? What changed from from leading up to the hearing where where if he resigned, we could have walked away? What changed other than a hearing examiner say we have good cause? Just because you have good cause does not mean you have to exercise it. Show some independence based on the evidence before you. You have the ability. Each of you individually and all of you collectively have that authority and no one can tell you otherwise. In the in the the IHC's recommendation, I'm going to read from it. There's two recommendations for you all to consider. Recommended that the board of managers, trustees of La Hoya Independent, >> Mr. Garcia, your 10 minutes are up. So, thank you very much. Thank you so much,
118Mr. Garcia. >> Appreciate it. >> We do have two minutes for Miss Vincent's rebuttal. Again, let me remind Miss Vincent, you do have two minutes. We will let you know when to restart. >> Let me know when you're ready. >> Okay. Thank you. Give me one second. Really fast. >> No rush. >> I'm ready. >> Okay. You may proceed. >> Okay. Again, I'm going to refer to the recommendation. The hearing examiner considered everything Mr. Garcia just um presented to you and specifically said in page 20, paragraph 61, the IICHE finds respondents lack of admission to having exercised poor judgment under these set of facts bears on his credibility. There was a lack of admission. He didn't admit and want to resign until the IC found good cause until the student had to testify and get
119up and relive that whole thing. The IIC also says it has nothing to do with competence in need for keeping such a strong teacher seen in respondent. Mr. Zarita contritess would go a long way and may have in inviting possible remediation and progressive discipline by the district short of proposing termination. Didn't happen here. He also said the IG finds based on the record before him there is a serious failing on the part of Mr. Zarita. The ordinary prudent employee would have avoided doing what Zarita did with no consent from parent. IICH is unmoved by respondents suggestion that lesser remedi measures should have been taken. President supports the premises there is no right to remediation. The average employee would not have made the serious mistake made here. IICH considered all of that and those were his
120findings and determination. And by the way to to suggest that Mr. Zarita is somehow the victim. The testimony that you have before you also shows that the student was bullied by students because of the fact that Mr. Zarita's contract was proposed for termination. So, not only did she endure the embarrassment um the bullying about the video, hopefully none of the students here in this room were the ones who actually bullied her and made her feel like it was her fault that Mr. Zarita is in this position, but it's Mr. Rita's fault. And for that I ask and I um recommend that you I ask that you um uphold adopt the hearing examiner's recommend recommendation that Mr. Zarita be terminated. >> Thank you, Miss Vincent. Thank you. Your two minutes. Thank you very much. Ladies and
121gentlemen, at this time, board members may ask clarifying questions of either party. Because the board's decision must be based on the record before the board, questions should be limited to issues that are already reflected on the record. The board may engage in addition may not engage in additional factf finding during tonight's hearing. If either party is aware of evidence in the record that would be responsive to any board member's question, the party may direct the board to that evidence or testimony as appropriate. At this time, do I have any board members that have any questions for either Mr. Garcia, Mr. Sarita, or for Miss Vincent? Seeing that we have no questions from the board and having heard from both parties and allowed both the board an opportunity to ask questions, tonight's hearing is now concluded.
122The time is >> 7:57 p.m. The board will now go into close session to consult with its legal council pursuant to Texas Government Code sections 551.071 and 551.074. 074. The board will reconvene in open session to take action if any on this matter. We will now go into close session. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are back from close session. It is >> 9:31. 9:31 p.m. >> Do I have a motion regarding action item 10.1? >> I move to adopt the hearing examiner's findings of fact and conclusions of law that that good cause exists to terminate Feda's contract with the district. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Item number 11, calendar. April, month of April
123is autism month. School Library Month, National Poetry Month, and Annual Elementary Field Day Month. April 15th, Purple Up Day for Military Kids. April 15, District Safety and Security Committee meeting. April 20th through the 24th, public school volunteer week. April 21st, Title 3 Parent and Community Engagement. April 22nd, administrative prof uh pro administrative professionals day. April 22nd regular board meeting will be our next time we will be host having a meeting here. Uh do I have any comments or any remarks from the board before we adjourn? >> I'd like to wish all of our students that have participated in their first STAR test or there's just the star. >> Um you know good luck and and just show us what you've learned all this year. Thank you. >> Any other members? >> Dr. Little, thank you
124for sharing today's presentation. and you certainly have motivated us. I I feel very confident that our kids are ready and prepared and after hearing from what Dr. Sorenson has said and yourself regarding the preparation that has taken place since last year. I mean, um it's led up to where we're at and I'm very excited and I think our kids are are are well prepared for the test that they're they're taking. So, I wanted to thank you and your staff. We convey that to the rest of the folks that you work with and to the rest of you. Thank you for everything for your continued support. Like I continue doing those videos. I mean, I like watching them. Uh, they're good videos and and to all of you that come out on, I watch all of
125you. So, I haven't seen you on any of the videos yet, but I would look forward to seeing that. Do we have any other um anything else that we want to bring to the board before we adjourn? Dr. Saw, any closing remarks? >> Yes. Thank you very much, board president. Um, first and foremost, again, I want to echo board member's warm wishes to our students. Um it is incredible to just watch you in classrooms thrive this year. And so this is your opportunity to show us all that you've learned. Um because I have seen you blossom and thrive in in all of my school visits. And so wishing you the very best um and the opportunity to just once again show them who we are. Um and thank you to the teachers and and campus
126leaders who you know create the environment um by which students learn and grow and have the ability to demonstrate exactly um how fabulous and brilliant they are. So thank you to everyone for supporting that environment. And with that I do want to acknowledge that it is assistant principles week. And so as a part of making sure that our campuses are thriving and great places for our students, um I really want to take a moment and thank our assistant principles. Assistant principles, um I I say it all the time, they're co-principles. Um and so what they do sometimes often doesn't get recognized in a way that it should. And because you know, we turn to the the campus leader and we turn to the principal. Meanwhile, the assistant principles are running around doing all the things
127behind the scenes. And so, assistant principles, you guys are incredible. You make the principal's job possible. And please know that you are our future pipeline. And so, we look forward to continuing to grow and develop our assistant principles to becoming our next wave of campus leaders. So, thank you so much. We recognize you and we appreciate you. Thank you, board president. >> Yes. Thank you, Dr. Sorenson. Marty, if you would do me a favor and please uh inform the kitchen staff that we're very grateful for the food and the meals that they prepare for us every every board meeting. And to the folks that prepare us for today's meeting, whether it's Blanca's team or the custodians and all that, please thank them for making this look so nice. Like I like I've informed my board
128and many of those that I work with, I always I always look at other board meetings and and and how it's conducted and I'm always really impressed of what we do here uh as a team. And so I thank my board for your continued support and of course supporting our superintendent and thank all of you um for everything you do for our students. So do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> I move to adjourn this meeting at 9:36. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. We are journed.