001It is 547 and we will begin our regularly scheduled board meeting. We will start again with the roll call. Dr. Ariel Cruz Vela Crystal Hernandez present Israel Vial present Rudy Corona Brutus Obama's present Orlando Lopez Alex Reyna Alfredo Perez present Tony Torres Next we will have the Pledge of Allegiance to the United States and the Texas flags and the invocation. Mr. Villarreal Good afternoon, everybody We're joined by two amazing students from Dr. Raul Garza STEAM Academy under the leadership of Principal Victor Monreal For our Pledge of Allegiance today, we have Alessandra Leal Ali Leal is an 11 year old fifth grader at Dr. Raul Garza STEAM Academy and is the daughter of Bobby and Courtney Leal At school Ali is part of the GT program National Elementary Honor Society Honor Choir track team is a
002two-time cheer captain for the rocket cheer team News anchor for her school's Garza News Network news production Plays violin in the school's orchestra and has represented her school in the science fair and spelling bee she also is a very proud chapter member of Samanito FFA and Represents her school very well by earning numerous ribbons banners and buckles for raising champion hogs and steers Outside of school Ali keeps very busy being a part of a competitive cheer team For she has also earned numerous championship titles including the highly coveted Cheer sport and NCAA titles all through hard work and dedication in the future Ali plans to attend Texas A&M University to study animal medicine Finally, she would like to thank our district leaders for creating so many opportunities for students such as herself for our invocation
003we have Lucia Catalina, Montreal Aguilar Lucia is a fifth grade student at dr. Raul Garza jr. STEAM Academy She is the daughter of Victor and Maria Montreal and the older sister to Francisco Her hobbies include playing Minecraft and building Lego sets Lucia has been playing piano since she was four years old and has competed at the George Ramirez young Artist festival and performed at different events and venues through the through the piano studio Lucia is actively involved on campus. She is a member of her chess team Garza News Network Robotics Orchestra and Is the National Elementary Honor Society president in her spare time when not building Legos? She enjoys playing tennis spending time with family pets which includes seven dogs a cat and a horse Lucia's passion for animals has been evident since she was
004able to crawl and has increased with age She is responsible She's a responsible and compassionate caregiver providing daily care as well as preventive health measures such as vaccinations medication and support for her pets during healing Lucia hopes to attend Texas A&M as she works towards her goal of becoming a veterinarian Ali, will you please lead us with the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God Indivisible with liberty and justice for all Honor the Texas flag. I pledge allegiance to thee Texas one state under God one and indivisible Will everyone please bow their heads? Dear Lord, we thank you for the many blessings you have given us You have given us the gift of life and
005our health and well-being at this time Dear Lord, we ask that you bless our board members and mr. Pettis abundantly and give them wisdom guidance courage and strength Be with them in their deliberations and help them make wise decisions for the good of all those Who have placed their trust and confidence in their leadership? We ask that you help them share their individual and collective gifts with our schools and community and to give of themselves In ways that make a difference in our families in our students in our schools in our city For all of this we give thanks father in your name. We pray. Amen Ali and Lucia, will you please come up to be recognized at this time? We would like to recognize the principal Victor Montreal and the parents of Ali and
006Lucia The next portion of our board meeting will be the special recognitions. Mr. Gonzalez Welcome and good evening everyone Buenas tardes y bienvenidos a todos que están aquí con nosotros y también a la gente que están oyendo La junta online también. So at this time we get to the portion of the meeting where we get to Recognize the distinction distinctions and the accomplishments of our students We have three student groups that will recognize this month We begin with San Dino High School's chess team at the 2026 regional chess tournament they placed second place in the high school championship team division Which is the highest division in chess competition? The San Dino High School chess placed second place at the 2026 regional chess tournament That was held at Harlingen High School South on January 31st and
007February 1st Our chess team has officially qualified for the 2026 National High School K through 12 tournament to be held in Chicago, Illinois in May the following are the students that qualified there there will be part of our qualifying team and we begin with Christian R Gomez 11th grade at San Dino High School Angel M. Bada, he is also 11th grade at San Dino High School Kevin R. Cruz 12th grade San Dino High School Aaron D Rosro 12th grade San Dino High School Jacob a Montoya 10th grade SP HS and Anthony Gamba 12th grade SP HS the students are led by teacher and sponsor the chess coach is Eric Villarino and the side coordinator for after-school program that helps coordinate the logistics is Cynthia Alvarez The principal for San Dino High School is miss miss
008Manuela Lopez. She is not available We have open house going on today and also that's Cynthia Alvarez is also assisting with open house tonight at San Dino High School So we can have the proud parents of these outstanding students. Please stand to be recognized for your support of our students Again, they were then placing that second at regionals our district criteria allows them to advance to the national championships in Chicago, Illinois in May, so we wish them the best of luck Representing San Benito and South Texas Congratulations students. We look forward to your send-off to Chicago in May Parents, thank you also for your support The next recognized group was also from San Benito High School and they are the girls varsity wrestling team The 16 6a district champions and the 16 6a district dual
009champions The lady hounds wrestling team had a historical season by capturing the championships in three major tournaments Which included the King of Cradles? Mustang Invitational and the all-american car classics tournaments They also were went undefeated in duels and are back-to-back 16 6a dual champions the biggest accomplishment was winning the 16 6a district championship held in Edinburgh, Texas Nine girls qualified for the regional tournament in Austin, Texas and Evelyn Balderas qualified for the state tournament in Cypress, Texas We will introduce the students who qualified were state qualifiers and we begin with Evelyn Balderas 12th grade in the 115-pound district also district champion and placed third at regionals and represented San Benito High School at the state tournament Next we have Caitlin Rodriguez 12th grade 170-pound division district champion and placed six at regionals Savannah Ramirez 12th
010grade 105 pound division district champion and placed six at regionals Anjeli Ortega 12th grade 140 pound division district champion and regional qualifier The next group of students were the regional qualifiers and they include Brianna Castillo Brianna Castillo 12th grade team captain and regional qualifier Madison Castillo 9th grade Veterans Memorial Academy regional qualifier Dianara Garcia 12th grade regional qualifier Natalie Cisneros 10th grade regional qualifier Michelle Macias 11th grade regional qualifier Ruby Lucio team captain and regional qualifier Next are the students that also represented the team and they include Shayla Sosa 12th grade Nayeli Esquivel 12th grade Mia Morales 10th grade Leanne Garcia 12th grade Alessandra De La Rosa 10th grade Violeta Gallegos 9th grade Veterans Memorial Academy Allison Sabala 10th grade and Leila Boudinus 9th grader at Veterans Memorial Academy The head coach they're under the
011direction of Christian Longoria Christian Longoria an assistant coach is Alia Gonzales the principal is Mrs. Manuela Lopez from San Benito High School and Gracie Martinez from Veterans Memorial Academy and they're both attending their open houses and At this time we want to recognize the very proud parents that provided the support They needed in order for our students to achieve the outstanding accomplishments for this season If you could please stand to be recognized our parents Again, I just want to remind they were the district champions and they were also the district champions in dual champ championships So outstanding results for our ladies team Congratulations to all our ladies and to our coaches as well We will have our photos posted tomorrow of all the students recognized today on our Facebook page The next group to be
012recognized is if it's from San Benito High School and they are the boys varsity Wrestling team they are regional and state qualifiers The boys varsity wrestling team had an amazing season by being placed in the top four as a team in major tournaments including the La Jolla Palm View Invitational the bear down Invitational the all-american cat classic tournament. We all they also qualified eight students who the boys They represented the region advanced to the regional tournament in Austin, Texas and two boys advanced to the state tournament in Cypress, Texas The state qualifiers will begin with Brandon Salinas 12th grade district champion and third at regionals Damien Hernandez 11th grade district champion and fifth at regionals Our regional qualifiers include roel Garcia 12th grade Gabriel Lopez 12th grade Humberto Garcia 12th grade Julian South said a
01312th grade John want the my odd 10th grade one or take a 10th grade Uriah De Leon 10th grade the next are also team members of the rest boys wrestling team and they include Axel Mendez 10th grade Micah De Leon 12th grade Valentin Rosales 11th grade and Luke Gonzales 11th grade The teachers and head coach include Juan Caballero our head coach for the wrestling boys wrestling team and our assistant coach Alejandro Esquerdo Principal is this Mamie Lopez and at this time if we could have the proud parents and families of these outstanding students Please stand to be recognized for the support you offer our students Congratulations gentlemen coaches and parents. Thank you for your support Madam president board of trustees and superintendent bettas that concludes our recognition ceremonies for this meeting at this time the
014communications department would like to Congratulate and also wish the best of luck to our Rio Grande Valley livestock show Students who will be busy all next week representing San Benito. We also want to wish happy Valentine's Valentine's st. Patrick's Day I'm still in the love mood Happy st. Patrick and of course, everybody's looking forward to a very restful spring break So we wish you a very restful spring break to the entire staff and our students and in our community as well Thank you. The next item on our agenda is public comment Public comment before we begin I will remind our audience members of the board's procedures for handling public comments The public comment portion of our meeting is available to the members of the public according to the following I'm a regular board meeting the
015board shall permit public comment regardless of whether the topic is an item on the agenda Posted with notice of the meeting at all other board meetings public comment shall be limited to items on the agenda posted with notice of Anyone who would like to speak during public comment must sign in prior to the start of the meeting at least the topics they want to discuss An individual's public comments to the board shall not exceed five minutes per minute Please keep your comments or criticisms civil and courteous Please avoid using profanity and refrain from making personal attacks on others during opportunity to speak We ask that you do not discuss students who are not your own children. In addition, the participating individuals should adhere to the following State their full name and what organization or group
016if any is being represented Indicate the topic about which they wish to speak Shall I frame from commenting directly on any individual employee or public official by name? But I may refer to a specific employment area job title or the board of the whole and shall I frame from attacks on individuals? Lastly after at least one warning from presiding officer any individual continues to disrupt the meeting by his or her order action The residing officer may request assistance for law enforcement officials the other individual removed from the meeting if the speaker is seeking board Resolution for a specific complaint that concern should be addressed through the district's grievance process District policy DGBA has been established for addressing employee complaints Policy F&G is the avenue for filing parent complaints and policy GF addresses community member complaints
017Grievance forms can be obtained at any campus administration office or at the district central administration offices We have one speaker. I'm miss Rosalinda Garcia. Good afternoon I have the most respect for most of you board members. I really appreciate your role I really didn't want to be coming up here like I did with previous boards But this thing about this event about closing of the Rangerville Elementary I spend a lot of hours and I like doing it researching because I don't have your role That you have the budget, you know, and my research shows that we have a 34 million dollar budget and 100 million comes from the state and I know a few months ago you had some schools up here You celebrated to start testing. There were two schools that scored an A
018the collegiate and Encantada I don't know if it's legal, but Did anybody recommend for those teachers to get a stipend a raise? That's excellent Excellent that they especially Encantada and we know that overall we don't want to say the negative things that we scored a C And I'm finding out that we're at a high risk. I don't know if it's true or not drop out risk and that are at work going down an enrollment bar Administrations growing and I found that to happen Several years ago, I think Joe D. Gonzales was superintendent and that was happening and I know y'all have a very very Complex, you know with working and then Doing the your school your board role, but um, you have to You know about this dr. Quick several years ago He put out
019the red flags there about school closing and a board member said it themselves herself that Boards through the years have been getting notices about the dwindling funds or the expense of funds and Through the years I've been doing I see a lot of a lot of it like our newest Expenses were on the softball baseball field over a million dollars now, we're getting this scoreboard and Lighting and I see a lot of change orders They tell you what price and there's a lot of change orders the prices go up You know, you have to you have to pay more than what you say We have a lot of expenses We're not gonna save any money with the bond with our facilities We're gonna cut down but we're not saving anything because we did a soil
020Analysis over there at Garza and we paid for it. Now we have to duplicate. We're gonna duplicate everything We're gonna pay for it all over again. So we're not gonna save We're not gonna save so Yes, I wanted to bring those Do what's best for the district, you know, we're spending a lot of in these through the years athletics Are we increasing our? science Departments are in those major major subjects math or at the high school. Are we increasing their budgets? We need to look at that and I I know y'all like I said You know and Ranger bill should be given a window Not too close tomorrow If it's gonna happen I was well if it has to happen it has to happen But after you hurt hurt hurt those parents, I couldn't be
021there, but I listened to the whole video those students the parents the teachers That's good that they spoke up That especially teachers where you're an employee you feel intimidated, but no they were there and I was glad to see them Teachers and some paraprofessionals so like I said, I don't want to like I Respect you all and I make the best decisions for the district There's other departments that need a lot of Repairs, I know we need a lot continue the repairs with the rules the elementary schools Y'all have a lot to look at and Yes, I was totally like as a committee member on this big scoreboard project But somebody likes it out there. So what can we do? Thank you? Thank You miss Garcia The next item on the agenda is the board
022report on behalf of the entire board. This has been a very Interesting three months that we've had here in the district and I know everybody is eager and excited For spring break next week a whole week off. We hope that everybody Enjoys themselves get some rest and relaxation Enjoys time with their family goes out to see our kids. That'll be participating in the Mercedes Rio ground livestock show We've got a great bunch of kids out there and we know that they've all been working very hard on their projects We know we've got several sports athletics activities going on throughout the week as well We want to thank those coaches and those parents and athletes that will be out there practicing and everything During their spring break and I just want to wish the entire district
023a happy safe spring break. Anybody else? I had a comment that it's in reference to the Rangerville I just wanted to apologize first of all to the community in Rangerville to the staff to the employees I was unable to make that meeting you to work What I do want to say though, is it for the people that did reach out? Thank you We did take all those calls every board member here and and also the staff, right? I want to thank mr. Perez and his entire crew because they all came together with the board members as we all spoke at different times to mr. Perez and we took those concerns to heart and Like miss Garcia said, you know, we It's not something that we want to do It was a discussion that took place
024and that's all it was was a discussion There wasn't any official set mark that it was going to close or nothing like that But once again, mr. Perez and your staff, thank you And I'm glad that we are not closing the school and mr. Perez has already sent out letters to all the parents once again Thank you. I'm sorry. Enjoy your spring break. I apologize Yes, I would like to again We still good luck to our FFA team The sleep our parents staff And all the students that they're gonna be there competing which are you are the best? Also, don't don't forget. We're gonna have not the whole staff. It's off during spring break we're gonna have our main excru also working during spring break and Just that we choose the best be careful their
025spring break. I know there's a lot to enjoy out there, but please be careful I was thinking of the cotton candy and the popcorn and I will be out there Thank you for your service continued service and enjoy next week. God bless you Just to reiterate real quick, you know a couple of the board members set up here But once again, I just want to I just want to thank each and every one of you all for your hard work up to this point You know, we've gone through a lot So far to a point it's time to take some time off and reflect and enjoy your vacation time much needed Yeah, I'm an FFA parent, so I'll be out there working But anyway, once again, I just want to I don't want to thank
026everybody From administration all the way down to our employees or anything they do for our school district and a heartworm hard working And heart warm well vacation time that you guys need. So once again, you know, thank you guys very much for what you do The next item on the agenda will be the superintendent's report Good evening, everybody. Just wanted to thank everybody for getting us all of us at three quarters year done I just hope everybody enjoys their break Get the much time needed that you need for rest our teachers. Thank you for everything you do our administration I do want to wish luck to our FFA students as they go into probably the biggest week of the year for them Everybody knows we're a powerhouse when it comes to our FFA showing so
027good luck to all them Good luck to all the parents. Thank you for all the support you all give us Also the softball baseball everybody who still continues to work well the rest of us get a break, you know, good luck but other than that, I will hope everybody comes back rested and ready for the couple of weeks before testing and Back to work Next we will have the consent agenda in order to promote efficient meetings The board may act upon more than one item by a single vote through the use of consent agenda consent items placed on the agenda will be marked with an asterisk consent items are items for which no board discussion is anticipated and For which the superintendent recommends approval Prior to the time which approval of consent agenda is had
028at the request of any board member any Member of the Board of Trustees any item on the consent agenda shall be removed and given individual consideration I will continue this like at the last board meeting go one by one ask any board members that they would like any item pulled And then we will ask for a motion to approve all of the items Mr. Cordova Mr. Lopez Mr. Virial Mrs. Hernandez. No, mr. Gomez. No, and mr. Dana Okay at this time. I'd like a motion to approve all of the agenda items 6.1 through 8.2. I've got a motion by mr Lopez in a second by mr. Gomez all those in favor raise your hand all of the consent agenda items will be approved It is 620 and we'll be moving into the closed meeting in
029accordance with Texas government code open meetings act The board may move into closed session for the following reasons Section five five one point zero seven one for the purpose of a private consultation with the board's attorney on any or all subjects or matters authorized by law and section five five one point zero seven four for the purpose of considering considering the appointment employment evaluation and reassignment duties discipline or dismissal of a public officer or Employee or to hear complaints or charges against a public officer or employee it is six twenty one and we'll be moving into closed session Once again, thank you. Everybody. Have a great spring break. It is 8 o 4 p.m. And we are reconvening into open session Agenda item 10.1 employment resignations retirements and terminations. Mr. Perez. Yes I asked the
030board to approve the employment resignation retirements and terminations as discussed in executive session Do we have a motion? Motion to second. I've got a motion by mr. Gomez in a second by mrs. Hernandez all those in favor Motion approved agenda item 10.2 consideration impossible action to renew term contracts for administrators for the 26th 27th school year Mr. Perez has discussed an executive session. I asked for the renewal of the term contracts for administrators for the 25 26 school year I'm sorry 26 27 school year. Is there a motion? I got a motion by ms. Hernandez in a second by mr. Gomez all those in favor motion approved Agenda item 10.3 consideration and possible action to renew term contracts for teachers librarians and nurses for the 26th 27th school year Also as discussed in executive position
031I'm asking for approval of the term contracts for teachers librarians and nurses for the 26 27 school year Is there a motion? I've got a motion by mr. Hernandez in a second by mr. Villarreal all those in favor Motion approved and agenda item 10.4 consideration and possible action to renew probationary contracts for teachers librarians and nurses for the 26 27 school year Same thing for this one as discussed in executive session the probe I asked that the board approved the probationary contracts for teachers librarians and nurses for the 26 27 school year Is there a motion? Got a motion by mr. Gomez in a second by mr. Gomez all those in favor Motion approved if there are no objections the meeting is adjourned. It is 8 6 p.m