LJISD Board Meeting 11/19/2025

001should run a snack. Good morning everyone. >> Morning. >> Good evening. >> Good morning. >> It's been a long day anymore. >> Well, some of you responded, so that's scary. >> Good evening, everyone. It's 6:00 p.m. Uh, let's go ahead and call this meeting to order. I'm going to go ahead and start by asking you to state your name if you're present. Starting on my right, >> Jessica Tro present. >> Carlos Marggo present. >> Chavez present. >> Alisa Pñena present. >> Soma Jun present. >> Okay, we do have a quorum. And I see that we have Dr. um Ernnandez is not in right now, but uh we may be seeing her a little bit later. Uh let's go ahead and get to agenda item number two, which is I mean agenda item number three, and

002that is a pledge of allegiance. If you're able to do so, I ask that you stand up and face the flag. >> I pledge algiance 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. >> Thank you. You may be seated. Next item on the agenda is our public comment portion of our meeting. Do we have anyone who has signed up for public comment? >> Yes, we do. >> Okay. Seeing that we do have someone that has signed up for public comment, just a reminder, we ask that you make your way to the podium. Go ahead. You have the three minutes to to state, right? Three minutes um to state uh your remarks and um at the

003end of three minutes, we will let you know if you if for some reason you go a little bit over. Okay. >> Okay. Sir, you may start now. >> Good afternoon. My name is Isaac Curado, junior class president at Palm High School. I appreciate this opportunity to speak today because the teacher's career, reputation, and future are at risk due to the information that is simply not accurate. I am here to provide a factual record regarding Alexandra Pñena Flores and the community service event that students including myself attended on October 25th along with other volunteers that may not be present today, but I have their statements here on paper. First and foremost, no La Hoya Yaz policy in no Texas law was broken. I was physic physically present at the event and speaking from from direct

004firsthand experience. The event was off LAZ property outside of school hours, not school sponsored, completely voluntary for every student. No student was ever pressured, influenced, or encouraged to support any candidate. We simply show up, volunteer, work, and went home. We were not campaigning. We were not participating in any political activity. We were doing what students do when we're trying to build our future through community service hours. Any claims that students were used for political purpose is false. Now I want to clearly explain the law and policy. Texas election code 255.003 political advertising. This law only prohibits using public funds for political advertising. Miss Flores did not use school funds, school equipment, school emails, school facilities, class time or any school authority. She did not promote a campaign. She simply informed student of a voluntary volunteer

005opportunity which is normal part of the year program. Under this law, there is no violation. Number two, Texas Education Code 11.169. electionary with district funds. This prohibits using district money to support or oppose a candidate. Miss Flores used zero district funds and never engage in electionary. There is no validation. The Hawai policy J K D A G KD non-school use of facilities and materials. The district restricts political activity only when it occurs on district property using district resources or when students are used for political messaging. None of this apply. This event was on not on LaZ property. did not use LA resources, did not involve students in any political messaging. Again, no aliasation. Alexandra Pña Flores is a teacher who operates operates with ignority. She has helped hundreds of students grow, serve the community, and

006prepare for college career in life. She would she would never put students in the political situation and she didn't. Punishing a teacher based on assumptions instead of facts does not represent the values of transparency, fairness, and accountability that La Hoya al stands for. We the students who physically there know exactly what happened and we are telling you today with completely honestly the accusations are false and firing Alexandra Pñena Flores will not be unjust and unsupported by policy and the law. I am also here with over 150 signatures from junior students with whom Miss Flores has impacted throughout high school. She she has been our mentor. She has helped us with college visits scholarship and she has given us her own time to support our education. As the co-sponsor of class of 2027, she stays slates

007with us, helps us organize events, and even buys materials for her own money so our class can be proud of what we can create. People say school is our second family. For the class of 2027, the is the person who always checks on us, guides us and stand out for us. She has taught me personally how to lead, how to think before I speak, and how to communicate respectfully. This is what she has passed. Your three minutes have passed. Thank you for your comment. >> Thank you very much, sir. Uh, for the record, if you could go ahead, madame uh, secretary, could you go ahead and state his name? The gentleman that just spoke, >> Isaac Hurado. >> Thank you for the record. Thank you very much. Thank you very much for your comments. Do

008we have anyone else who has signed up for the comments tonight? >> No other public um, comments for tonight. >> Okay, great. Seeing that we have no further uh, business on this particular agenda item, um, we're going to go into the public hearing portion uh, of our meeting. Uh it is right now 6:06 p.m. We are now going going into a public uh portion of our meeting which is the hearing. Again it is 6:06. Um at this time we will open public hearing item 5.1 public hearing on this Lao Independent School District's financial integrity rating system of Texas first report. Mett Crystal floor is yours. >> Good evening Mr. Alvarez uh members of the board Dr. Sorson. Tonight we are presenting to you um the required public hearing to show you the financial integrity rating

009system or score for 2425 which is the fiscal year ending on 24. The financial integrity rating system of Texas or FIRST is the accountability rating system that we re we use is used to ensure that we as a public entities uh as a public school districts are accountable and do use our funding and our financial management effectively and with the best um the best way for allocation of our resources to instructional purposes. The principal goals of the first um score is facilitate efficient use of resources and strengthen fiscal accountability for all school districts. Is it provide to us tools to measure how effective we are increase our resources in direct instructional activities demonstrate the efficient use of those resources. recognize our performance and increase the visibility of financial well-being of public schools. This rating work

010from A to F. We have um different standards and different awarded points is A B C for everything that is above 70 points and F for any um points that are sub standards and is less than 70 points. We have we are measured seven financial ceiling indicators. These indicators are the ones that give us the access to be able to receive the maximum amount of points. These are yes or no questions regardless of how we manage our funding. Different is seven different indicators. Just yes or no. If we miss any of those seven indicators, we are now entitled to the maximum allotted rating. We have a total of 21 indicators that we had to meet. Those are in this presentation. I'm going to go to some of them, not all of them because it's 21.

011Um but the most important pieces is showing that we receive good uh audits that we are showing that our responsibilities are met. We have the days of cash in hand and the resources necessary on the ability for covering I'm sorry the resources necessary to cover all the abilities and all the indicators are met except um sorry I went too fast we have one of the indicators that we have only eight points and this is the measure of assets that's against liabilities and this is just related to how we manage our debt daily on our payrolls and all those things and we still are in a little off on the percentage uh of the rating. Um but that is putting us on 98 points over 100 which is a superior standard. There are other required disclosures

012that we are having exhibit in our website right now and this is the superintendent contract reimbursements compensation and fees gifts and other transactions. Those are requirements to disclose in order for us to also access to the maximum number of points at the end. This is what I wanted to share with you and the community today. We are we have earned an A superior achievement for the management of fiscal fiscally responsible management of our funds for the year ending on 2024. >> I think that deserves a round of applause. What do you think Reette? >> And now we open to public input in case somebody wants to comment on this. >> Great. seeing that her presentation has completed. Uh has anyone signed up for comment during this portion of our meeting? >> We do not have

013any sign up. >> No one signed up. Dr. Sorenson, would you like to say a few words? >> I just obviously um am really proud of the team. Um so team, if you're here, the financial team, stand up for a second. I'd really like to recognize your hard work. Um it is a journey that we are taking in the office of business finance and administrative services to make sure that not only is every dollar accounted for and going to our students and our employees and our programs and to make sure that we are bettering the district. um but that we are fiscally responsible, that we are transparent, and that we are complying with laws and regulations as we should. And so I'm really proud of your leadership, Miss Crespbow. Thank you so much for your

014integrity, um your pursuit of truth at all times. Um and also your work really guided towards continuous improvement. Um, we know that, you know, it doesn't always happen in a year or two. And so, I'm really excited to be able to share with the community that we've earned an A. Um, and we will continue to work on all of our financial processes and fiscal responsibility to demonstrate to the community the trust that the district, the community really wants to have in all of us. Thank you. >> Thank you. Does anyone have any questions for Roette from the board? >> Okay, no questions. Thank you very much for the presentation. Uh, at this time we will close the public hearing. It is 6:12 p.m. and open the regular board meeting again at 6:12 p.m. Next item

015on the agenda is agenda item number seven. I'm going to ask um that Miss OOA and Mr. So Gomez board members if you can make your way to the front of the dis for recognition 7.1 run is 7.1 is recognition of La Hoya High School football coach Ruben Vas and this will be done by our executive director of athletics. I think this is the first time he's had an opportunity to address the board in this official capacity if I'm not mistaken. Mr. Joseph Pñena Mr. Pñena it's all yours. >> Mr. President, uh Dr. Sorenson and members of the board. Uh I don't know if it's true, Mr. President, but Dr. Sorenson has mentioned that that you an official. >> Yeah, I'll be in Denton this weekend. >> All right. Uh I officiate it as well

016and and there's nothing better than going into a game and the food's ready. Everybody is super uh excited to start the game, but the officials are the most important part to get that going. So um today and to tonight I should say it is my honor to recognize coach Faras and La Hoya Coyote football program for a distinguished commendation from UIL. The UIO recently send us a good sportsmanship report acknowledging the outstanding leadership Coach Faras and his coaching staff demonstrated during the incredible Equinomides contest. I think Mr. Szo you were there. I think it was 59 to 56. Um, they specifically highlighted the positive environment created for players, officials, and our community. An environment that truly reflects the pride Coach Faras takes in representing the great state of Texas. So, I don't know if you

017know this, but Coach Faras is also a board member. So, what makes this moment even more special is that this is the second UIL good sportsman recognition that La Hoya High School has received this year. A remarkable testament to the consistency, culture, and character of our La Hoya program. The UIL noted his commitment to improving sportsmanship, reducing ejections, and strengthening relationships among coaches, athletes, officials, and the fans, stating that in his program in it embodies the Texas way. Coach Vas known you for many years, coach. Your example sets the standard for educational athletics, not only in La Hoya ISD, but across the region. And on behalf of La Hoya athletic department, our entire district, we congratulate you and thank you for modeling the excellence, integrity, and character we strive to instill in all of our

018ISD students. Congratulations, Coach Faras. very much. Welld deserved, COACH. >> SIR, Thank you, Mr. Pñena. Thank you. Thank you. Great season, coach. Appreciate it, >> Mr. Pñena. I appreciate that the acknowledgement. So, some time back uh I had informed Dr. Sorenson uh that I had received um a call uh from uh an official thinking that maybe he was going to complain about what had taken place, right? Um, but one of the things that I did experience was that multiple times this year I've received calls from various officials that have come to La Hoya or have been part of a game where La Hoya any of our schools were part of outside of our our town and they've all recognized the sportsmanship of not only our La Hoya football team but all the other teams as

019well and I'm very grateful for that. the sportsmanship, uh, how kind they are, uh, no arguments, no questioning of the officials, the conduct. It's obvious that the classroom extends outside of our buildings, and that was a perfect example. And there's nothing that gives me more pride than to hear that, that our young women and men u certainly represent this school district well. Uh, I have no doubt that we have great teachers and our coaches, and so I'm very proud of that. So, I want to thank you for acknowledging them today. And it was a good game even though I'm from Hornen. Uh I was voting for my La Hoya Coyotes, right? And uh I took I took a lot of pride in that. And so again, thank you for that. Um and yeah, let's acknowledge

020the officials. I mean, come on. Let's acknowledge them. You know, I will be leaving I'll be Friday at 9 and my game will be late, but it'll be all right. So, thank you for that. Any questions or any comments from the board regarding our coaches or coach Pas and his team? >> Dr. Senson. Yes. So, I first of all, Coach Bas, I'm so proud of you. Um, you went into this season, just determined, right, to really do great by your boys, by your team, and for our district. And we couldn't be prouder of you. We really couldn't be prouder of you and your coaches and your boys. I mean, Friday Night Lights are just the best. And so really your leadership, your sportsmanship, your heart, your dedication, it's just present every single time you're out

021there. We were actually at the last game and I looked at Chris and I said, "So after a game like this, is he like sad? Is he mad? How does he act?" Um, and that's because you care deeply about your program, about the performance, but most of all about your student athletes and your coaches that do the work with you. Um, and so I also want to acknowledge Chris Hernandez who is sitting there with you. Um, also an athletic coordinator at La Hoya High School and the principal, Eduardo Flores, because I know personally that you can't do it without a team. And so I really thank you for your leadership. I thank you for your mentorship of me as I've come into the district. I'm truly grateful and for all that you do for our

022students. >> Thank you. Good job. Thank you very much. Again, a round of applause for the football team. Our next item on the agenda is agendum item number 8.1 budget and priorities and uh um by Margette Cresbow. Again, Margette, this is uh again the budget priorities and budget process. Floor is yours. >> Thank you, Mr. President and Dr. Senson, members of the board. We are starting our budget season. So we are today uh I'm here presenting to you what we are the first presentation always um working towards our transparency and aligning our financials to the expectations of the district. Um we are starting today our budget season. So vision, our mission of course always centering on what are we here for and our students outcomes goals, what we want to achieve and our GPMS that

023align our system to monitor and ensure progress. Centering on that we are introducing to you the budget process. This budget process is focusing on four different areas. planning, communication, development and of course at the end the budget proposal. During the planning that is the phase where we are right now we are going to develop the calendar defining the process and priorities and guard rails and this is where we are today. I want you to start centering um with to you the community centering on what we ended the year on 2526 during our planning. We initiated this budget alignment that we are committed to on a strategic priorities and on a strategic plan um with our five strategic priorities. Excellence in leadership, empowering graduates, thriving students, community trust, unity and partnership and operational excellence and financial

024stability. Last year when we started to do our budget, we didn't have these priorities settled. We were fortunate to finish our strategic plan on time to be able to align and work towards in in initiating our budget with this strategic priorities in mind this year. This is what's driving our budget. We are centering ourself on these strategic priorities to ensure that our funds are going to be maximized and impulsar goal. What are those priorities that we are going to align um with the strategic plan? First, academic improvement strategies. We are going to work on school actions to improve efficiencies generating reinvestment opportunities in order to provide innovative evidence-based practices that accelerate our learnings, the learning of our students. This is directly aligned to our expectations for empowering graduates. A strategic compensation improvements with this the

025promise to ensure equity and competitiveness to attract, develop and retain high quality staff. Some of the things that we're working on here is the TIA or performance for principles and correcting and revising our compensation plan to ensure that we are equitable across the organization. The third priority is access to student support and after school activities where we will work to over expand opportunities that directly support student well-being, engagement and achievement directly aligned to our thriving students and community trust priorities. Fourth, operational innovation, investment and sustainability. We have to ensure that we innovate in our operational systems and processes because we are centering on improving quality in modernize infrastructure and ensure financial sustainability. This is directly aligned with our community trust and of course our operational excellence strategic priorities. What are we looking for during this

026budget season? We are looking to a strategic investment through school actions that can lead to measurable student growth. This budget development will help us to reinvest savings from operational efficiencies to sustain innovation to address all our needs. Scale effective school actions and improve our organization through models that are applicable and necessary across the district. Apply academic return of investment. We will continue to grow on that. um to ensure that all decisions have a direct impact on the student outcomes. We will invest in programmatic shift as necessary and any intervention that are grounded on evidence practices to support student and adult learning and prioritize allocations that directly advance to or north star performance goals. Again, centering everything around our strategic plan. In order to achieve this, we had to have guard rails places where or we

027help our organization or members of the organization to make decisions and not deviate of our objectives. We have five guard rails. First, a student center. We will not make decisions that comp compete or contradict our commitment to improve our instructional interventions. Manage instruction is center of all our budget decisions. We where we keep our students at core. A strategic alignment of course as I have been saying keeping every decision aligned with a strategic plan and northstar goals. Community trust. This is not only one of our strategic priorities, has to be one of our budget guard rails because we need to keep working on strengthening our transparency to build confidence in the decisions that we made in the district. And finally, financial stability. We have to remember we have less enrollment. We have an increase of

028cost, an increase of needs and looking for improving our programs and facilities. that needs is part of our guard rails. We have to protect the financial stability of the district in order to be able to respond to the needs that we have. Finally, I want to show you the timeline of course always the commitment to come back here and show you where we are, what we are doing, where our priorities are looking like and how we are calculating revenue and expenses like we did last year. But one of the things I want to show you here in December the budget trainings would need assessments priority and guard rails training for all our staff so they are aware of what's coming and the school actions proposals January stakeholder input identify capital investments initiate zerobased budget we

029are going to continue with that strategy because it's a best practice strategy for high performing organizations um and then by May we should have final uh near final budgets to discuss in public hearings review be to get prepared for budget adoption in June as suspect. This is my presentation. Um if you have any question, comments or concerns, please let me know. >> Members of the board, do we have any questions for Miss Chris? >> All right, seeing that we have none, thank you very much for your presentation. Next item on the agenda is by Dr. Little. It is agenda item 8.2, to school actions. Dr. Little. >> Thank you, board president. Good evening, everyone. Uh we are here to discuss our recommendations for school actions for the upcoming school year. Really centering that discussion in

030our continued pursuit of educational excellence for for every student in the school district. So, as we lay out these recommendations and the process that we will take to engage the community on them over the next several months, it really always comes back to this vision and our commitment to doing everything we can uh to ensure that our students have the highest academic opportunities and outcomes possible. Uh it will also connect back to the presentation that you just heard from Miss Cresbow around financial sustainability and how we can reinvest and really shore up what we are working to do with students academically. Uh this presentation also certainly advances our pursuit of these goals. Uh we still have ambitious outcomes to achieve by 2029 and our school actions tonight will help us do that as well as

031our our goal progress measures and ultimately our northstar goal. Um you're going to hear more specifically about how this relates to the Northstar goal in in a bit. uh and just want to frame that as we think about getting to 90% of our students in AMB rated campuses that requires a a variety of approaches. One of those approaches is through uh school actions and that's part of what we are bringing forward today. The other thing that we want to pause for a moment and sort of situate the conversation in is our strategic plan. Uh we have a really robust ambitious strategic plan to guide us over the next five years. uh based on these five priorities. And as we think about the school actions tonight, we're really pursuing priority two and three in particular, how

032we empower graduates and achieve the outcomes that we're setting out to achieve with our students and ensure that we are creating spaces for thriving students to really support the holistic needs uh of our students and in partnership with our community. Uh the other thing that really touches on the strategic plan is this concept of future school models like ways that we can go about providing education to students in opportunities that we don't currently have. We heard that a lot through the strategic planning process that the community wanted to conceive other ways that we could think about schooling in La Hoya ISD. That is one of the initiatives in the strategic plan. And so all of that sort of comes together in this set of recommendations that we're going to share with you in this presentation.

033And so as we think about our pursuit of our northstar goal, our pursuit of our goals and our our goal progress measures and bringing the strategic plan to life, there are three things that we want to constantly keep in mind and our reasons for the school actions that we're going to propose. Uh number one and always number one for us is the pursuit of academic excellence. like doing everything we can to ensure that students are receiving higher quality education, that they're in the best placements possible, uh, and receiving the best-in-class services that our students in our community deserve. Uh, we also have to recognize that based on our last year's results and accountability ratings, right now only 47% of our students are attending AMB rated schools. Our Northstar goal compels us to get that to

03490% or higher uh by 2029. And these school action recommendations will help us do that. The second piece, and this came up last year as we were talking about those school actions, um although that was not our rationale last year, it is part of our decision-making process now. And that is the fact that we have lost 27% of our student body in the last decade. So, as we sit here this school year, there are 8,000 fewer students in La Hoya ISD than there were 10 years ago. That obviously has ramifications for the number of empty classrooms that we have in buildings, the number of low-enrolled classrooms that we have that we're staffing and providing support for uh our facility utilization rates. So, all of that is a factor in how we think about situating the

035district uh to best serve our students moving forward. And to point number three, to be able to do that in a financially sustainable way, as you just heard from Miss Cresbow and our budget priorities, like pursuing academic outcomes is the number one priority and everything we do has to figure out how do we reinvest in our students and the programs that we need uh to get those outcomes. And so as we look at financial sustainability, we know that costs are continuing to increase at the same time that we're not expecting huge influxes of resources, whether that be from the state or uh the federal government. So we really have to rethink how we best use the resources that we currently have available in the district. And so with those reasons in mind, just want to

036give you two more slides as context here. Uh we've shared this slide before. It shows all of our schools and their current academic ratings. Uh again, we certainly own and recognize that that list in the DNF bucket got much bigger last year and we are working uh vigorously to to change that outcome right now. Uh but across the board, our Northstar goal is focused on A and B rated campuses. We got to get 90% of students into those spaces and right now that group represents less than half of where our students are. And so as we pursue these recommendations, certainly as we pursue all of the instructional and academic work that I'm normally up here talking about, that is in pursuit of that change in outcomes and opportunities for students. The other thing just to

037see visually is that enrollment decline. Again, we've gone from a district of near 30,000 students to a district of less than 22,000 students within a decade. This is not a unique phenomenon to La Hoya ISD. districts all across the the state, all across the country are struggling with enrollment changes. Uh we are also going to be pursuing a deeper study and look at our demographics uh in 2026 that will help us better understand and project where we may be going in the future. uh but want to recognize and our community to recognize that while we have to respond to this and certainly strategically act to ultimately win families back to the district as much as possible, we still also have to recognize the reality that we are a quarter smaller than we were a decade

038ago. And that requires action from us as a district as well merely to be good stewards of the resources that we have. And so as I start to lay out these recommendations this evening, we want to keep in mind three things that we are doing as a result. We are always pursuing uh students being able to attain higher rated campuses. That aligns with our Northstar goal, aligns with our vision and mission and certainly is necessary for us to achieve our goals in GPMs. The second, as we just discussed, we are addressing our decline in enrollment and what that means in terms of our ability to operate uh schools efficiently and effectively and pursuing all of this with the lens of financial sustainability in mind so that the programs that we provide, the academic resources that

039we put in place that we can continue to offer those and always have the most evidence-based researchbacked programs and opportunities for students in La Hoya ISD. So on the next slide, I'm going to lay out what our recommendations are this evening, and there are five of them. The first four all work the same way. They're the same type of school action, and those are called reassign school actions. Uh last year, you may remember with Garza, Sigin, and Zapata, we did a restart school action where we restarted two schools uh with the ACE transformation model. In this case, what we're doing is we are closing a school in the district and we are reassigning those students to another higher rated campus in La Hoya ISD. So number one would be to close Benvidas Elementary School and

040reassign those students into Fordise that moves students from a D-rated campus to a B-rated campus. Number two is to close Pena Elementary and reassign those students to either Clinton or Gonzalez. they would be reassigned based on where they live. So that's work that we still have to do in the coming weeks is to determine which students go to Clinton versus Gonzalez. But that also reassign students from a D-rated campus into B-rated uh schools. Note the little dotted line there and you may see the note on the left. Those first two actions for Benvitas and P uh Pena qualify as eligible for lasso funding. We talked about this last year. That's grant funding that the state provides in a number of ways, not just related to school actions, but there is a school action part of

041the lasso grant and both of those schools do qualify for us to apply for funding to support this transition. We'll talk about this in the next steps, but we intend to apply for those resources from TEA. And then the bottom two, while not eligible for school action funding, are still ones that we are pursuing uh given our three reasons. and that is to close LEO and reassign those students to Flores and Edie Raina again based on where they live. In this case, we're still getting an improvement in academic rating. And then the fourth one at the middle school level is to close in Richards and reassign those students to Garcia and Memorial. Again, all four of those work in the same way. Uh, one school is closing, students are being reassigned to either one or

042two other school buildings based on where they reside. The fifth one is a little bit different. This is a create new school action. Uh that is again something officially recognized by the state. There is potential funding available to support this. But just like last year when we talked about ACE, we are planning to pursue these regardless of whether we get those grants because it is the right long-term investment in our district and in our students. Uh so in this case, we would close JD Selenus. Those students would be reassigned to Trevenho. Next year would be a planning year with JD Selenus to reopen in 2728 as a career academy middle school for all of the district. So this would be an exciting opportunity where students all across La Hoya ISD could apply to attend to

043really start to build interest, exposure and opportunity in career pathways as we are working broadly to really transform our CTE offerings in the district uh particularly at the high school level. This allows students to start that process early, really explore a variety of options so that when they do get to high school, they are both better informed and better prepared to actually complete those industrybased credentials and be ready uh to compete for workforce opportunities. Uh so that one is a bit different. Even though short-term it results in the same thing where we're closing a school and reassigning students, long-term that is about reopening the building with an entirely new school program and model in place. The other thing we want to recognize before we go through each of these a bit more in depth is

044the fact that we uh are not proposing school actions for every DNF- rated school at this time. And we want to acknowledge that, be clear about it, but also talk about what that means. The other thing I'll do is remind us uh for Garza and Sigin, those were school actions we pursued last year as we started the ACE model there this school year. They would continue in that program for next school year. And so they would be in year two with ACE. So all of what they're doing continues with with staffing, stipens, additional resources, time, uh everything that we are pouring into those two schools. What we're here to talk about tonight are the next set of school actions for the five schools that I just laid out. You see those notated with the red

045school action language. So you got JD, Selena, Benvidas, Leo, uh, PA, and Richards is not actually on the DNF list. They are a a higher rated school, but that is part of our our presentation this evening. The thing I really want to point out here though are the ones with the purple monitor. There are five schools that are currently DRF rated. they're really all D-rated um that we're not making a proposal for at this time. We are continuing to monitor where those schools are. We're obviously providing support to all of these campuses as we've talked about already this fall. Uh and we're going to continue to look closely at how they do this year, what their results are, and what their accountability ratings uh end up being. So, we may come back in the future

046and propose a school action at these locations, but we're not doing that at this moment. The thing I want to really emphasize though is specifically for Dr. SCS. Remember as we think about the superintendent constraints and the constraint progress measures, we have four schools that are superintendent constraint schools. That's Garza and Sigin where we have ACE that's PA which is part of our recommendation tonight. And the fourth one is Dr. SCS. Uh we are not making a proposal for Dr. SCS at this time but we are really clarifying for you and the community and and the Dr. science staff and team that we are going to monitor very closely those results this year. We're going to see what the accountability and and star results look like over the summer and we will come back in

047August with the final recommendation for Dr. Science Middle School. That recommendation could be to continue the school as is. Um there's a new leader in place working very hard to improve and transform that campus and we are really excited about the potential there. So there may be no school action recommendation or there may be and it could be any number of of what we have in the school action portfolio but we do want to stamp and clarify that that decision will be made and recommended to you in August based on the results of this school year. So each of the next few slides just go into these recommendations one by one. All of these slides are organized in the same way. So I'll just orient us in the community really quickly to what we have

048here. So recommendation is obviously at the top. This is Benvdz. It is a reassigned recommendation. And in this case, we can apply for school action funding. Uh for this one, it shows you that we're reassigning students from a 69 uh D-rated school into an 87B rated school. So that's definitely in pursuit of our vision and what we're looking for with system of great schools. Benefits of that recommendation are on the left. You'll see that for each one of them. Uh there are three which generally apply across the board. Again, that's moving students into higher rated campuses, addressing enrollment declines and underutilization. And in this case, it's a more simple school action because it's just two schools that will combine into one school zone. So all of the Benvitz students will be reassigned to Ford. So

049that just becomes one much larger uh Ford school zone. The other thing we are calling out on the right is how many students are part of this reassignment. In this case, as an elementary school, we're looking at preK to fourth grade. We don't have fifth grade up there because they're moving on to middle school anyway. So, the reassignment won't impact their opportunities for next school year. This also helps make the point about enrollment and underutilization. Right now, we're looking at pre-K to fourth grade at Benvitas for just over 200 students. That is a really small elementary school. It is hard to continue to staff that efficiently and effectively. And so by doing this reassignment and closure of Inevitz, we can make better use of highquality educators, really providing great resources and making the most of

050our physical footprint and infrastructure in the district as well. The second one is PA. Again, we would close PA uh which is a D a low D-rated school and we would reassign those students into Clinton or Gonzalez, which are both B-rated. Uh similar benefits here, higher rated campuses addressing enrollment and underutilization. Uh and then we see the number of students at PA. This is a bit of a larger school certainly than MVIZ. Uh but still there's plenty of space at Clinton and Gonzalez uh for these students to to come in. I will point out in the middle we have the school zones. Uh the greenish color in the very middle of that map with the red apple is the PA school zone. If you go directly north into that big pink school zone, that's Clinton.

051So some of the students would be reassigned there. And then if you go to the bottom right or southeast to the bright green, that's Bonzalees. So that's how these schools or this school zone at PA will be sort of reassigned into those two locations. What I will call out is you may also note well hey there's Mindola and Kavasos also right there by Pena. But as we think about these and go back to reason number one of academic excellence that would be moving students from a D school into another D-rated school. That's certainly not what we are pursuing. That's why Clinton and Gonzalez are paired with PA in this case but they're still contiguous. they touch the PA school zone and so that still like geographically and logistically uh makes sense. Then recommendation number three

052is LEO. Note that at the the header here it's still a reassign recommendation but this is not eligible for school action funding. Uh so we would reassign from a D-rated school into Flores and Era. We certainly acknowledge that both of those are C-rated campuses at this point. Uh both schools have a goal to get back to a B rating this year. Again, really optimistic about what those leaders in those campuses are doing and fully believe that they can get there uh at the end of this school year. Flores is that salmon colored uh zone on the map. Students would either go to the left to the yellow, which is Flores, or up to the right to that darker green, which is Ebie Raina. You may also ask, well, why not send any students to the

053right where Escandon is? because Escandone doesn't have space. It's also a higher rated school. Um so that would satisfy that sort of criteria, but we can't fit any more students there. So that's why we're looking at the other two options which are also higher rated campuses than Leo at Flores and Era. In this case again, it's just under 300 students that would be involved in this reassignment. The fourth one, middle school here, Annne Richards. Uh and Richards is that long tall green box on the map. Uh it might actually be one of our largest geographical school zones when you look at how everything shapes out. And then what we are proposing here is that we would reassign those students into Garcia, which is that orange color, that almost perfect square uh on the map, and

054Memorial, which is that sort of pink and red colored box. So again, based on where students live, we're able to plot where they live in a really cool software system, and that'll help guide sort of where we draw the boundary lines to know which an Richard students go to Garcia and which go to Memorial. But again, in this case, it's an improvement from a C-rated campus into B-rated campuses. And then number five again which works a little differently except next year it'll feel the same and that is closing JD Selenas and reassigning those students into Trovinho. JD is that gray box on the map um next to the bright blue one which is Trevinho. So all of the students in the JD school zone would move uh into the Trevino school zone. This one, remember,

055is a temporary closure because we will reopen the school a year later as a new school model, as a career academy middle school. Uh, so this is accomplishing a number of things including moving students into a higher rated campus. Yes, addressing enrollment and underutilization. Uh, but also really moving part of the strategic plan forward. There are two initiatives specifically focused on career and college opportunities for students and reinvisioning and sort of reimagining those pathways and those opportunities. There's also another initiative really focused on new school models and envisioning what may be in the future that currently does not exist in La Hoya. This isn't the only thing we will end up talking about in the next four years of the strategic plan, but it is the first new school model that we are bringing forward

056uh focused on our career uh pathways and focused on middle schools. The other thing I will note here and you see this as the sort of third checkbox in the benefits of the recommendation. One of the things we also heard through the strategic planning process as well as through staff uh at the campuses is we have Trevino and Memorial that are currently designated as dual language campuses. Through this process, we would be removing those designations in line with the feedback we received, but also to really make space for other academic opportunities that students are wanting to pursue but currently don't have access to because of the schedule constraints. I also want to be super clear here to you and to the community. This is not belying our commitment to dual language. We are very committed

057as a district to dual language. We are continuing to expand uh two-way dual language programs and we are recognizing that in the context of these two middle schools. It is not actually serving all of the needs that it needs to serve. But we will continue to have dual language classes in both of these buildings as we do in every other middle school in the district. Again, part of the point here is made when you look at enrollment, this impacts less than 400 students at a middle school. We certainly would not think of a middle school being as small as 400 students. So, this really helps again improve programming efficiency and ensuring students have access to the highest quality educators. So, a different type of way to summarize everything I showed you on this slide. I'll

058just orient us to the table here. So the groupings are together. So you see Benvdas and Ford Ice. The school in the red is the one that we're proposing to close. The school in the green is where uh those students will be going. The academic ratings as of last school year. So Benvitas was a 69D, Ford Ice was an 87B. Enrollment as of October, capacity of those buildings and when they were built. You combine those together, Benitas and Fort Ice together is just under 600 students that would be going into a building of capacity of 750. So still like space and room uh in that context. I will note and we want to be transparent about this in the LEO cluster and in the JD Selenus recommendation those show up as pink on this slide,

059meaning they may be right at or above what state of capacity is. However, there are three things we want you to know. One is we're actually going to walk all of these buildings classroom by classroom and make sure every available classroom space is being used as a classroom. We had to do the same thing with Garza and Sigin. There were rooms in those buildings that haven't seen students in a long time even though they were designed as a classroom and now they're functioning in that way. This doesn't take that into account yet like making sure we're maximizing every available space. Number two is Chief Pearson and his team are constantly doing work to make sure that we got the most up-to-date capacity numbers. And so that'll get refreshed through uh ALA spring as well. And

060the third uh the reality of enrollment declines that we've been seeing, we do not expect those to just change overnight into next year. This doesn't take into account that we will likely have a fewer uh number of students in these campuses next year than we do this year. Um, so even though we're acknowledging that these show, you know, right or a little above capacity, we are not concerned about that. It is not going to create problems for those students. Um, but we did want to to be transparent with the math and be able to address that on the front end because certainly families will likely ask. And then finally to reason number three. So, we've talked about academic excellence. We've talked about enrollment declines in our facility footprint. And then we get to financial sustainability

061and the opportunity this actually gives us as a district to reinvest dollars into our students and into our programs. So, three things here uh in this reinvestment. Note the headline here. This frees up potentially 27 plus million dollars that can be reinvested or not have to be spent on building overhead and facility upgrade costs that now can be spent on students and and programming. Row number one here is an estimation of staff savings. So as we go through these closures um there will be some overall net reduction in staffing at every level from administrative staff to teaching staff to uh support staff. However, it's not onetoone. I'll use the benevas example uh here to help clarify. There will be more teachers and more staff at Ben at Ford next year than there is this year

062because all of those benevas students are going over there and so we'll likely have to open some new classrooms, hire some additional teachers. Uh so that'll be opportunity, but it won't be as many as what currently exists in Benovitz plus Ford. So that's the net reduction overall even though we will have to certainly add staff and FTEEs at the receiving campuses. So this estimation is what that net reduction uh could include. The second row is what it costs to just run the building. So that's you know light, air, heat, plumbing, water, all of those things. We won't uh receive 100% of those savings because we still have to keep the building up and running every now and then. turn the air on every few days like we don't want the buildings to decay. Uh so

063some of those costs will still be spent but we will save uh a good chunk of that. And then the third one is uh really important to to keep in mind and these are our big ticket facility items. So these are things like roofing repairs, HVAC replacements, big electrical system upgrades, like big truly big ticket things. uh and what it looks like for all four buildings in terms of what they need right now in the estimates we have. And Richards, for example, you can see needs over $7 million of work just on these big ticket items. That doesn't include everything that Chief Pearson would have on his list to actually get that building up to par and improve life expectancy there. So, as we think about this $27 million, it's both direct budget savings. what's

064in the budget right now that we're spending that we can redirect. And it's also cost avoidance. It's us not having to go put that money uh into those buildings because we're redirecting uh students and that investment to other places. And so just as a recap and a reminder before I share a few other things with you, these are the five recommendations that we are asking you to consider. We are not asking you to take a vote on this this evening. Uh much like last year, we're going to spend most of the next two months doing a lot of engagement. I'll talk about that in a second. Uh but we will be coming back to you in January asking you to formalize and and approve uh these five recommendations. Again, keeping in mind our pursuit of

065academic excellence, recognition of enrollment declines, and uh our pursuit of financial sustainability. The other thing we want to clarify on the front end, and we'll certainly talk to parents about this, is what it means for students at these schools, and there's really two different types of situations that we have to keep in mind. One is a student who's transferred into one of these five schools. I'll use PA as the example here. So, I live in the Tabasco feeder pattern, but I transferred into PA. As we pursue these school actions, those transfer students will be reenrolled back in their zone campus. So, if I'm really a Tobasco student because that's where I live, I'll be reenrolled back into Tabasco for next school year. However, I can still pursue transfer opportunities in the district. So, I can

066go through the transfer process. If I want to go to Clinton or Gonzalez with my my PA friends, I can apply to do that. or if I want to go somewhere else and now I want to go to JFK, I'll go through the transfer process to do that just like families always have done. What's important to note and what we really want families to hear is just like you've had to provide your own transportation to PA as a transfer student, you will continue to have to provide your own transportation to any other school in the district that you decide to transfer into. Only if you're returning to your zone campus, in my example, Tabasco, would we provide district transportation on the buses. Second case will be the majority of students in these five schools and

067that is their neighborhood school. That's where they live and that's where they're zoned to attend. They will be reassigned uh to one of the schools we listed. In the cases where we have two school options, again, that'll be based on where they live. So, in my PA example, if I now live in what is the new zone for Clinton, that's where I'm going to go. And if I need district transportation on the bus, we will provide that and you can ride the bus to your new school. So, just want to acknowledge that both of these situations will be at play for families given the different circumstances and transfer rates that we have. uh and we will work with every family through this process so that they are super clear what school they are attending next

068year, how to navigate the transfer process and what that means in terms of transportation obligations. And then finally, and and I'll do this just for ease of presentation, but Chief Miller is certainly here to to address questions, is we want to clarify what this means for staff at all five of these campuses. When we did the school actions last year with the three elementary schools and with the early college high school consolidation, we actually pursued two different paths. With the early college high school consolidation, that was a true consolidation. We were taking four schools and programs and sort of merging them into one. We followed the five criteria in DFFB local uh as a part of that process. So went through those criteria to decide who ultimately was placed and assigned at Jimmy Carter. On

069the other hand, still using DFFB with Zapata, Garza, and Sigin, those were treated differently as a closure and a restart. So all of those staff were released and then they had to reapply for opportunities in the district. That is the same process that we are planning to use in the case of these five school actions. All staff um would be released through a reduction in force. We would go through a program change process with you uh over about a three-month period following what is in DFFB local. Uh those staff at the five schools absolutely have the opportunity to apply for any available vacancy for which they qualify in the district, not just the schools receiving their students. So if I'm at JD Selena's, I'm not restricted to openings at Trojinho. I can apply to any

070opening in the district and there will be an internal timeline in the district where all internal candidates looking to transfer will have a chance to do that before that's open to any external candidates later in the spring. And the other thing we really want to emphasize here in terms of why that is the path we are taking much like the why last year with the elementary schools is one these are sort of pure closures. we are closing out that school and then students are moving into another place. It's not the same as the consolidation effort. And number two, and more importantly, it's on us to ensure that students have the highest quality educators and support staff available. So the reapplication and interview process helps us best guarantee that the folks coming into those vacancies are

071the best people that we can have working with students. uh and so that's what we are are proposing and pursuing as a part of this process. You see the timeline roughly laid out there. Uh we will ask you at the December meeting to take the first step in this process to initiate the program change. Uh then we will come back in January to do the second step. Uh and then finally if you approve this in late January we will come back in February to finalize these non-renewals as part of the reduction in force. And then lastly, just to give you a sense of what's coming up, uh first is notification and clarification. Uh all five principles are aware of this recommendation. We had a face-to-face in person meeting with them uh earlier today. Their staff

072and their families are getting formal uh written notices about these recommendations this evening along with the dates and times where we will have engagement opportunities at their campuses. uh and the communications team is releasing a press release to really uh let the whole community know about what we are pursuing here. Uh just like last year, certainly as part of one of our commitments and one of the superintendent's uh constraint commitments for sure, uh we will be out there in the community a lot talking about this and listening uh to what feedback we receive and how we best navigate this process. Uh we will also be submitting that application to the state to help with some funding related to these recommendations. We have other things in the lasso grant as well, not just uh school actions,

073but that will be part of our application after Thanksgiving break. Uh and then we'll be asking you over the next three months to take the steps necessary for the program change part of this process. And then if this is approved, we will certainly spend the spring and summer making sure that we are ready to go, that families are clear on where their school is for the next school year, that their students are excited about that, that we have the highest quality staff in place, that buildings are ready, and that it's a smooth transition uh as we continue to pursue the academic outcomes that we are committed to as a district. Here is a list of all the dates that we will be out at each of these locations. uh we will be spending much of

074December uh with the five campuses specifically part of the school action recommendations and then from late December into the month of January we will also be holding community meetings at all of the campuses receiving uh new students really so those families can start to understand what this is what it means families from the closing schools can come visit and see that location and start to bridge into uh that transition uh finally coming back to you on our meeting January 21st and asking you to approve these recommendations uh for school actions. And if you do approve that, we will then kick off uh what will be a very exciting engagement and design process for that career academy middle school to really start to build out what programs and pathways will exist there. This is um just

075a sampling of what we have prepared for communication and notices. Uh all of this will be available on our web. We are just like before going to be super transparent and responsive through this process. Uh so we will make sure our community both at these schools and more broadly is kept informed and engaged through the process. And we will listen deeply uh throughout that time. And then finally, here's just a visual representation of what the spring looks like uh as we go through uh the school action process and timeline. Uh so with that board president I'm happy to address questions. >> Thank you Dr. Little. Members of the board do you have any questions for Dr. Little? >> Vice President Thomas. >> Um thank you Dr. Little for the presentation. Um I have two questions.

076One of them is for the schools um role for all five schools um that are going to be expected to get more students. Were the teachers be expected to see an increase in class sizes? And then my second question would be um for the school action fund for the lasso grant. Um, what exactly um, do we need a grant for for school closure? I guess I'm because in my mind I'm thinking we're saving money, right, from closing the school. So, what exactly are we needing a grant for? >> Good question. We've actually asked that question a number of ways, too. So, we're super clear on how we use those resources. So, question number one, this question came up a lot in the early college uh, process last year in particular. So, I'm going to give

077you a super concrete example. Gonzalez Elementary right now may have a third grade class with 13 students in it. Our staffing ratio would go up to 22 to 25 students in a third grade setting. So will that teacher have more students in her class? Absolutely. That is part of what we are doing. So that 13 is going to go to 21, 22, 23. What isn't going to happen though is it goes to 30 or 35. So this isn't about like really busting at the seams and going above our ratios. It is making sure that as many students as possible have access to that one high quality educator and it is a fully staffed and fully enrolled class. The other thing that will happen is there will be more students in the building. So campuses will

078have an adjustment like pickup and drop off at the beginning of the year will be a bit busier because you got more people coming and going. Uh but we're not changing our staffing ratios through this process. But that teacher who has 13 right now would have a full classroom next year as part of this process. to question number two about lasso in the grant. There are four types of school actions that districts can pursue. Last year we did one with restart. That's not part of our recommendations. Tonight we're pursuing two and three which is reassign and create a new school. For the reassign uh the funding is really to help with the transition. So, if we need funds to do community engagement to pull families together to help prepare for the transition, uh if we

079need to have some logistical support and how we're changing transportation routes or communicate that, it's not a lot of funding, but it provides funding to really help with that transition. It's not long-term programmatic funding for the create new school. That is funding to help go through that planning process. So as we're engaging with the community, industry, higher education, all of those partners, uh it helps fund some of that work so that we end up with a real high quality set of programs and pathways for students in that location. The other thing I will note, um and I I think we had this footnoted on one of the slides in the JD Selenus example where we would create the middle school career academy, we will also hire a founding principal for that academy. And so we

080would actually hire that principal by this summer and they would be part of the planning process all next year to be ready to reopen the school in 2728. And so the funding helps pay for that as well. >> Thank you >> members of the board. Yes, MOA. >> Dr. Little, similar to the um actions that we performed last year with Sigin and Gara, we have um they're under ACE now. They're in ACE campus. Would we not qualify for Benaman Benvitas to be under an ACE campus as well? >> Very good. That is certainly a potential. Um, so the state releases a list each year that says these are schools that qualify for again all the school action types. Um, PA is on that list and that is an option we could have pursued. We debated

081all of those possibilities. Part of where we landed where we landed is going back to those three reasons. Academic excellence automatically improves with the reassigned to Clinton and Gonzalez. Uh this best addresses the enrollment decline because we're reducing our footprint of buildings and we're better able to modernize our facilities and invest in fewer places. If we had PA become an ACE campus, that would not be true because we would still continue to have another school building open that we're working to staff and resource both from an operational standpoint and an instructional standpoint. And the other thing I I will uh say in regards to ACE, it was incredibly challenging last year uh to ensure that we were staffing Garza and Sigin not only with the highest quality educators that was built into our process, but

082with enough of those highquality educators. Um there are not a whole bevy of people like just waiting to come in to our classrooms and to our schools. And so we I had real concerns, we had real concerns um that we would be able to find enough staff through the A selection process to be able to operate a third elementary school. It's not off the table forever, but we did want to recognize that challenge uh that we faced last year with Garza and Sigin. So the short answer is yes, that was a possibility, but as we vetted through that possibility, it was not the one that we thought was in the best interest of our students short-term or the district long-term. >> And then with your experience in transferring a student from a a lower grade

083to a higher grade campus, what is the turnaround time to see student outcomes improve? really quickly. You put students into a high quality classroom and you can see that change literally sometimes overnight. Teacher who has good structures, good routines, high expectations, a lot of love for students like that change is felt immediately by the student. You do that day after day, week after week, early in the school year and and things certainly start to move. Uh so that is part of the premise behind this recommendation is there's lots of evidence to show that that has a immediate and lasting benefit to students. It is also part of why we're pursuing the program change in the way we are to ensure that the additional educators coming in are the best ones possible because that's what the

084students really need. >> Did the principles indicate any concerns um and discussions today? Principles are certainly grappling with this in the same way that their staff will and and that is heavy and we empathize and recognize that. You've heard Chief Miller say a number of times. Uh we take any staffing implication decision really seriously. Uh and that certainly impacts, you know, the concern and worry and anxiety that people start to have about what comes next. Um our principles will go through that as well. That said, in the conversation I had directly with principles this afternoon, is we still have 21 weeks of school, I'm intentionally pausing there, like they got to show up every day and they still have to lead their campus. Teachers still have to provide the best instruction to students. Staff still

085has to show up ready to support and do all the things that are necessary to generate outcomes. Our expectation for these five campuses is not changing because of these school actions. They still have to improve. None of these five school should be a D-rated campus at the end of this school year. That's on us to continue to provide that support. That's on, you know, our teams to respond to staff questions and work walk them through this process uh and be really supportive and understanding and compassionate uh through that process. But it's also on us to ensure that students still get great opportunities every day. And I would also add and we have direct example last year as we think about Zapata and Garza Elementary School last school year again in the same position. Their school

086is closing. All of those staff are figuring out am I going to have a job here next year and where is it going to be? Those are two of seven schools in the district that showed improvement in our accountability outcomes. Those two principles, one is still with us in the district, made a decision that they're still going to lead their campus through this. They're going to support their people and they're going to have moments and days that are hard, but at the end of the day, they are committed to their students and doing what is right. That is the expectation I have of all five of these principles and the teachers and staff in these buildings. And we have an example just four months ago of where it is possible. >> Thank you, Dr. >>

087Great questions. Any other questions? >> Yes. Uh Dr. N through sorry >> let me go ahead and go Miss Pñena go ahead. >> Um through the consolidation of the early colleges was was there any like lessons learned that we're looking to apply um as we go through these school actions? >> We learned a lot of lessons last year again like this is the way this just came to my mind. This is a humbling experience and process. We are we are changing things for families. We're changing things for our staff families. We're certainly changing things for our student families. Um and and that is a heavy responsibility. We do that in pursuit of the reasons that I laid out here. Uh but it's still something that we again take very seriously and acknowledge. Uh and so

088part of the humbling process is we learned a lot uh through the process, particularly through the engagement process. Uh I shared with you last last um January when we finalized those recommendations that our first community engagement sessions didn't go so well and that was really on how we set that up and how we approached that and and how we showed up to listen to our our community. So we made those adjustments last year that ended up working out um quite well. And so we're building that into the engagement process already this year from having materials available in both English and Spanish to how we're going to handle translation to how we're setting up norms at the beginning of the meeting. Like all of those things which may seem small really matter uh and they show

089consideration to our community and to our families. Um the other thing in terms of like the program change in particular uh last year with the early college again that was a unique true consolidation and so that process made sense and was the right way to go. Uh we also learned that it doesn't apply in every context and so that's part of why we're making the recommendation here with the program change being a full release um and sort of reduction in force because that one is streamline communication and understanding on behalf of the staff. they're not confused as to where I am and what criteria I fall in like that just simplifies it for them. Uh it also makes the process much clearer and much cleaner uh on our side as well so we can support

090people through that. So those are just some of the examples that we built in already on the front end uh as we pursue this round of school actions. >> Awesome. Thank you. And then I do have another question in terms of um parents or staff that has concerns. Um is there aside from the town hall going to be um an area for them to kind of voice that? >> Yeah. So we will have the face toface opportunities. We will have uh digital feedback opportunities. So we'll have like a way that we're capturing feedback uh through an online form and then certainly folks can reach out to our human capital team or to to me and my team if they've got very specific like individualized questions. Thank you, >> Dr. Marggo. I know you had a

091question. >> Yes, Dr. Little. Um, I know you referenced the decline in enrollment and how this would address that, but how exactly is the closure of or reducing the number of schools directly affect the decline in enrollment? I know you talked about it, but if you wouldn't mind talking a little bit more about is it that we're losing students because of the poor ratings of the campuses or facilities? >> I think there's three parts um that I'm hearing from you, Dr. Margaret, and I'll try to tease all these out. So first is like why is enrollment going down? There's always a number of reasons for that but I'll share a few with you and again they are not unique to La Hoya ISD. These are things that districts across the country are grappling with. Um

092one is perception on public education in general like families are opting into whether that's charter schools, independent schools or homeschooling. That is a trend that we've seen increase nationally in this period of you know the same decade period we're talking about. Uh number two is changing demographics. We're actually going to get updated demographic information for our district uh later in 2026, but uh people are having fewer babies, just to be frank. So there's fewer students out there uh to come in to public education. And then the third is always more local, which is decisions that drive where people go. So am I transferring to a nearby district or am I moving to a different place in the state? That's part of this as well. Um there is and this still truly baffles me and I

093think it does other people. People disappeared in co like kids literally disappeared. You had students in schools in 2019 and they were not there in 2021. And like I don't know where they went but that again true all across the country. And so that's a factor as well. To the second part of your question that I'm hearing is does closing schools automatically change that? The answer of course is no. What it does is it helps the district be best positioned to serve the students that it does have. So you saw those budget numbers, whether it's staffing or maintenance and operation or deferred maintenance and facility costs. That's all money we have to spend for every building that we're running. Uh and when we do school closures, that helps us redirect those funds into places so

094we can be more efficient with staffing. we can be more efficient with operation costs and at the end of the day we can be more effective in our academic program and our outcomes. Uh so it's not going to change enrollment. That's not the strategy lever that we're pulling here, but it is going to adjust and respond to the enrollment changes. Now, the third piece I would say is as we continue to improve as a district, as we get to that north star where 90% of of your likelihood is attending an ARB campus, that's our story to tell to the community to earn that trust back. So, we are earning students back in the district and increasing enrollment over time. >> Thank you. >> Do we have any other further questions? Yes, >> Dr. Little. On

095slide 49, you document here creating a middle middle school career. I believe that's academy. Yes, academy. Can you um define what that looks like? >> Sort of. And the reason I say sort of is because part of this is to be determined by design. Like we've got to engage with our community and parents and students. we got to gauge with workforce partners um in industry to finalize what that design looks like. So I'll give you a broad concept. Um you know we got career and technical education pathways in our high school. There are 13 of them where students can choose uh everything from you know welding to cosmetology to business and lots of things in between. Part of what this career academy at the middle school will do is it will expose students to those

096opportunities at a much younger age when they have uh the chance and the time in middle school to explore different things. So by the time they get to high school and they're choosing a career pathway, they're actually choosing one that they really know what that entails. Here's what the work is. Here's what the academic requirements are. Here's what the job opportunities look like. here's the type of life I can have uh if I pursue that type of career. So, I make that high school choice. I'm actually fully committed to it and I'm better prepared to complete it. Part of what this is solving for multiple years in advance is students who come to our high school career pathway programs, they don't really know what it is. They take a class, they start it, they don't

097like it, and they don't end up finishing. That's not helpful to the student. That's not helpful to their outcomes. that's not helpful to us as a district as we're thinking about what pathways to offer. Uh so that middle school space really provides the exposure opportunity as well as building the preparation and prerequisite knowledge and skills so students are more ready in high school and then can like fly and thrive by the time they graduate and enter the workforce. But the the sort of part is which pathways we don't know because that's part of what we got to build together. >> Thank you. Any other questions from the board? Before I proceed, just let the record state that Dr. Hernandez has joined us at 7:15 p.m. Um, I have a couple of statements or comments. So,

098most of the questions that I had prepared for your presentation were asked by the board members and um and I appreciate that. I also appreciate that SB Pearson uh chief will be working. It it came at a time when you just did a presentation recently on how we were going to reroute, how we were going to do some cost savings. So, uh, as I referenced, uh, during, uh, our meetings with the superintendent, uh, earlier in the week, I I appreciate that it's coming at the same time. So, thank you for that. Um, I also was concerned of the of the decline, but I was looking at your slides. Slide 47 shows, you know, 200 and something students at Leo Elementary, and then slide 50 shows like 335. And I'm assuming that the 335 includes the

099fifth graders cuz they weren't the same number at the same school. But then I started averaging the number of students that were per class. And I thought, wow, we have probably classes that only have 12 students or less. And so I could see why we would be doing this. And so it makes perfect sense. And then after reading what's happening around, not just in the real Grandandy Valley, but around the country, schools are closing for the same reason. I mean, enrollments are declining. Uh people are being homeschooled. uh you referenced earlier about less babies and and we do have a population of individuals that live in this community that travel to other parts of the valley to work and so we could see that and so I appreciate the the presentation that you provided with

100us or that you shared with us because it was very helpful. I'm also curious when I saw that you had the um press release and also the literature that was going to go out on that page 57. I'm assuming it's also going to be in Spanish, right? So, it'll be in Spanish. I couldn't see it there, you know, but I'm assuming it'll be in Spanish and English. So, >> that's right. >> Good. Good. Um, and so again, I I think we're well prepared. I saw the timeline. That was a question I was going to ask. I saw that the dates you had everything in line up till January 20, I mean February, no, January 21st, that we would be making a decision. >> So, I appreciate that. Dr. Sason, do you have anything that you'd

101like to say? >> Yes. Thank you, Board President. Um, I think Dr. little um covered all the facts, right? And so I I will leave the facts um to his presentation, but as a superintendent um I never take any of these decisions lightly. Um they are um challenging decisions. They are decisions that um change a district that we just celebrated 100 years of. And so you have to acknowledge the history, the tradition, the legacy, and the deep roots that exist in a district like ours. And so that's one side of every single one of these decisions that we make to acknowledge the very people that make this district special and different than any place I've ever been. But then as a superintendent, I also have to acknowledge the fact that we've lost a quarter of

102our student population in a decade. And that is not fiscally wise to continue to operate in the exact same way knowing that prices to run a district, to fund a district, to pay salaries have all increased. to run programs, to buy instruments, to buy buses, to fix roofs, to to to buy a scoreboard. All of the things that the district throughout strategic planning told me they wanted. And so I, as a superintendent, have to weigh both. And none of that is easy. I again, there are livelihoods behind this. There's history behind this. There's tradition behind this. There are names of buildings behind this. And my first responsibility is to make sure that we provide academic and programmatic excellence for children. I cannot do that in a building where there are 200 plus children that has

103the capacity for 900. especially when I'm also being required, as I should be, to actually reinvest in the district in a way that the community asked me to, in programming, in facilities, in salaries, and I could keep going, but I won't. And so, these are really hard decisions. I will say this um and I am positive that you know the district community may not say this publicly but when I was doing strategic planning engagement last year there wasn't a place in space where people didn't ign because I started talking about this actually last year very transparently very transparently we just didn't know which schools or what decisions we were going to make but talking about closing schools was something I did publicly And everyone in the district when I would have these conversations would say,

104"We know. We know. We've known for a long time. We know that these decisions have to be made. Just don't close my school." Right? And so that's that's the thing, right? Everybody knows it needs to be done. Everybody knows that enrollment is declining. Everybody knows that to run schools is incredibly costly. They also know all the things that they want, but don't close my school. And so those are the decisions that I'm charged with recommending to the board. And so I want the community to know that we will continue to be transparent. We will continue to be honest. We will continue to be your shoulder partners. We will make sure that the very best educators remain in this district and remain in classrooms with our students. um and that again we don't take any of

105this lightly and we have to make the hard decisions that move our district forward and so I thank you for the opportunity to address um the community and the board board president. >> Thank you Dr. Sornson. Do we have any further questions? >> Okay, thank you uh Dr. Little. I know you're going to remain there with uh you'll be teaming up with Miss Cresbow on this particular agenda item. Next one will be agenda item 8.3 campus improvement plan and district improvement plan. Miss Creswell. >> Yes sir. Good evening again. Uh we are here presenting to you today the campus improvement plan, district improvement plans. Uh for the 25 26 year we will cover different improvement plans today. I will take care of the first group district and campus improvement plans and Dr. little would work

106on the turnaround plan, targeted improvement plans and local improvement plans. Of course, everything as we have been discussing today is pursuing our mission, vision, goals and northstar goal. Um focusing, centering, we are not deviating from what we want to achieve with our students excellence for the district improvement plan and campus improvement plan. These are legal requirements from the Texas education code where we have to develop, review and revise improvement plans annually. The district improvement plan and the campus improvement plan are going to help us to have blueprints for developing what we are using strategies that we are using through across the district for improving our students performance. The intent is of course show with the community and show our students and teachers all the stakeholders that we are aligning our goals or resources or strategies

107and and actions through our best academic standards from the state and also aligning them with our strategic plan. We had to we have provide um a data framework and decision making as framework that help us to keep accountability and monitor the progress of the schools through the year. Also it help us to promote equity and access and addressing all the needs on all student populations special programs EBS students emerging bilingual and student receiving a special education services. We have been working very hard to do continuous improvement or on development of our district improvement plan or campus improvement plan. We have worked very hard on aligning uh or manage instruction theory of action to ensure coherence alignment and quality across the whole district. We did a development process that took several months to in help our

108campuses to do need assessments, training our leaders to understand how to go to look for root causes have um understand the district parameters and expectations and finalize campus specific plans that answer the needs of their specific students. Through all this time we did training and support we have an amazing platform that we use for the campuses so we can unify the process. We also work through manage manage instruction defining goals strategies performance objectives by based on the district strategic plan ensuring that all of our campuses are responding and aligned to our goals. We established type parameters around what could be customized um in and I will show you later an example of how we did that. So the campuses have their own activities and strategies that respond to this their own students is still responding

109to the district goals and the uh expectations and we did clear trainings and parameters to ensure quality control. Um we work very tight my office uh with the grants um office and the leadership area with Dr. little staff to ensure that the parameters and expectations were clear. Not just for the principles and the staff developing the campus, but also for our supervisors to ensure that when we were monitoring and checking for quality, we all were in the same page and ensuring that the campuses were responding to what the alignment and clarity that we were expecting. And we are doing checkpoints to review through the year to ensure that we are monitoring and keeping accountability through the process. Every campus improvement plan includes 13 performance objectives and 33 strategies around our goals. These strategies are designed

110aligned to or five strategic priorities. keeping the goals clear and and explicit alignment with our priorities with excellence in leadership, empower graduates, thriving students, community trust, unity and partnership and operational excellence and financial stability. I repeat it so we can learn them because sometimes we forget how they what which ones they are. So um this structure is helping us to establish a cohesive approach is very is intent to help our campuses to ensure that every strategy that they implementing is really responding to the district goals and that we are all working towards the same and in the same direction. These are a couple of uh examples of the performance objectives. We establish performance objectives based on grade level. So we have some for elementary school, some for middle school, some for high school. All align

111it to our LSG goals and GPMs but assign it to based on the grade levels that the students are. So the example the first sample you have in there is the is for elementary school. These examples are for elementary schools. In this case, the performance objective 2.1 that is around meats on um reading and the performance objective 2.2 that is around meats on math. And as you see the strategies that are in there are clear and explicit align it to what we expect our campuses to perform. campuses then have the responsibility to assign actions and budget that is going to support the implementation of these strategies across the campus. Thank you. >> Thank you, Chief Presville. Part of what you're seeing as you think about all three of these presentations is a look to the

112future and our budget priorities, actions we need to take to shore up our academic work and sort of financial uh stability and modernization of of our facilities and now what we're doing actually this year uh to continue to pursue improvement. So all campuses have an improvement plan like Chief Preso just laid out. What I want to talk about are specific school plans uh that we are putting together partly due to the requirements given our accountability ratings at these locations. It is acronym salad for sure. Uh but just a little bit of context here. Taps, tips, and lips are all different types of improvement plans that add on to the base campus improvement plan that you just heard about. We're going to give you a little context on these. So, uh, a TAP is a turnaround

113plan. Uh, the state requires those for campuses that had multiple years of unacceptable ratings. This is the like most um aggressive type of turnaround plan uh that we have to work with campuses on and submit to the state. The tip is a targeted improvement plan. It's like the middle layer here. Hey, we've got to see some change and some improvement, but it's not yet to the level where you've got multiple uh consecutive unacceptable ratings. And then the lip is the local improvement plan, and that's something a little bit beyond what the campus improvement plan is, but again, not as extensive as the targeted improvement or turnaround plans are. And that really just rests locally with us to to monitor and work on with our campuses. Uh you are asked and required uh to ultimately approve

114the turnaround plan and the targeted uh improvement plan. So the taps and the tips do require board approval before we submit those uh to the state. I also want to recognize and appreciate um Miss Ortiz, one of our executive directors in the team who has really taken on this effort uh to lead for our district and work with these campuses, supported by all of the rest of the team, but sort of as the the chief sort of owner of getting all of these put together and ready and working through all the feedback we received from region one to ensure that these are ready to submit. So, thank you, Miss Ortiz, for that. A little bit of context here. So, how do campuses get chosen for a tap, tip, or a lip? And that really is

115based on their data and their accountability rating. So, the state is looking across schools all across Texas and saying, you know, you've shown um consecutive years of decline or consecutive years of underperformance or you're showing real jaggedness in your performance and we're a bit concerned about this. Uh and so they identify schools uh for one of these plans. Also in the federal plan that every state submits, they have to lay out criteria for this. That's part of what guides it as well. These elementary schools have all been identified for some type of these plans. You see, and this starts to make conceptual sense. Our three constraint schools here, Pina, Garz, Sigin are certainly one of them. And so they have to pursue uh one of these types of plans as well. But the other thing

116I will note here just in terms of the graph, these are overall accountability ratings for the schools and you see the blue bars is our most recent data from last school year and in all but one case. Those are consistently lower than where they were even the year before, two years before. So that's why these campuses get extra attention in these plans. Uh middle schools, uh we have four that are working on this. Again, you see signs as the constraint school on here. So that gives you a sense of how these are chosen. And again, we see lower results across the board here as part of the trigger for these plans. So, quickly, uh, we'll walk through a few specific things. So, Garza is the only campus that's actually required to do a full turnaround

117plan. Uh, even though both Garza and Sigin are our a schools, Sigin from an accountability standpoint and TEA perspective isn't treated quite the same way as Garza. So, Sigin has the like middle tier plan here where Garza has the full uh turnaround plan because it has multiple years of F ratings and Sigin did not. The other thing I'll note here is uh we do have to submit this to TEA for approval as well. So, officially that's commissioner's approval. There's a team at TEA that we'll work with to review these and finalize those to ensure that they are approved. And that is a multi-year plan. It's not just for this year, but it will extend into next year as well. Uh the targeted improvement plans or the tips. This is more of our campuses. We got

118three at the secondary or sorry, three at the elementary level, four at the secondary level. The column to the right is just giving you and the community information on how they were designated for that type of improvement plan. And the reason can be a bit different. Sigin and Pedes for example have a federal designation again due to the what T Texas submits to the federal government as part of its accountability system that's where those come in. Uh Pena is a bit different. It's got three years as D- rating. So that becomes an unacceptable identifier even at the state level. The other thing to note, I didn't say this actually in the last presentation, is when you get um a string of D's in a row, the state actually turns those into an F and that

119becomes part of the permanent count of F ratings, which can trigger other things from Texas in terms of actions with school districts. And then at the secondary level, those like the first two elementary ones, they're triggered because of the federal identification uh with accountability ratings overall. And then the local improvement plans, uh, we've got, uh, five overall, three different reasons here. So, three schools, Chapal Leo and Kabasos, earned a D- rating. So, they have a one-year improvement plan. Mindola, again, recognized federally. This is a lower level of federal recognition than what you saw in the tips, but still nonetheless. Um, and similar for Benvitz as well, but again, a different type of federal recognition. All of that again is the acronym salad. Bottom line here is these schools have additional focus uh on the improvement

120that they are pursuing this school year. Uh Garza again goes into next school year. There are additional requirements for our monitoring and reporting for these campuses uh to the state. We are also providing support to these schools. It's not just hey you're going to create a plan and that makes you get better. It's what you're doing through that plan that really helps you improve. We have talked about and appreciate your support uh obviously for a sec and sigin but also the district management group support that we brought in this year to the four superintendent constraint schools that is underway and ongoing right now. And then all of what we talked about in every other report we did you approved again 1.7 million more dollars uh in support for teachers in classrooms in PLC's with their

121curriculum. That certainly applies to these schools and in fact as we tier them um these schools generally get more of that support than do others in the campus because of the needs that we're seeing and the turnaround required at these campuses. Um, so all of that said, we are asking for your approval of our overall district improvement plan. Again, directly aligned to our vision, mission, northstar goal, strategic plan, goals, and GPMs. The campus improvement plan, which applies to every campus of the district, and then these specific additional improvement plans uh for turnaround, targeted improvement, and local improvement for the campuses that have been identified. and then chief press and I are happy to take questions. >> Um members of the board, do you have any questions? >> Thank you, Dr. Little. These um plans that

122you're recommending for approval, how does that relate to the previous uh school action plan and do they overlap? >> Uh it's timeline is really the key here. So all of these improvement plans really focus on the work that we're doing this school year to improve outcomes right now. the school action recommendations that we just made, those would start next school year. So, PA, for example, one of the schools in the the tip list here, that really helps us make sure that that school finishes strong in the best way it can, setting those students up for long-term success. The closure and the reassignment starts next school year. >> Appreciate it. Thank you. >> Any other questions from the board? >> Dr. Little, you said this was going to this was a action item. Is it for

123tonight? It is. I believe it's in the consent agenda, but yes, it is for you to vote for. >> Okay. Dr. Sason, do you have anything you'd like to add? >> Um, the only thing I would want to add is just um the coherence. Um, I think the I want the board and the community to hear that um while there this isn't what you call it an acronym salad. Um, we worked very hard and again, thank you Miss Ortiz and the rest of the team to make sure that the plans that our campuses created were coherent. We did not ask for the tap to look different than the campus improvement plan. Now again a tap asks for more information and there is more monitoring and there is more regulation from the state but we want

124them rowing in this in in one direction. Not one plan addresses one thing and one another. I mean we want our principles to be focused on the very things that we laid out in our theory of action around managed instructions. the implementation of high quality instructional materials, the improvement of instruction in the classroom to make sure that we are doing coaching and professional development for our teachers, right? Like those foundational items that we laid out in our theory of action. How are we supporting our teachers to deliver high-quality instruction every single day? What does tier two look like? What does tier three look like? Right? How are we talking about special education and emerging bilingual? And so we've got to I I really want the board and the community to understand that although this is

125acronym salad, we were very clear with our principles and worked very hard with them to make sure that they didn't feel pulled in multiple directions, feeling like they had to serve multiple, you know, spaces and places in order to accomplish the goal. The goals are the same in every plan, right? Not the same for every school, but they're working towards board goals. they're working towards their individual school improvement goals, right? And this is where we talked about like one campus may have to improve more than the other. That goal remained the same per plan. So they're not shooting for different things in different plans. And so I just wanted to make that part clear um so that again you understand that we are supporting our principles with coherent and like very longitudinal um professional learning

126around how to get there um under our theory of managed instruction. >> I have a question if I >> Yes ma'am. >> So I I like how we're standardizing the assessments and uh adjusting per school. Now, does this also match the employee assessment or performance? Does it all tie together? >> Absolutely. So, that's that's a component of it, right? Every teacher across the district is evaluated according to tests, right? And so, one of the things again that um we're looking at is like how does teacher performance directly relate to student outcomes, right? As our principles are setting goals, they're setting goals by classroom, by student. And so when we're giving them their data, they're able throughout this entire process to actually then intervene and coach and support teachers based upon say their unit assessments based

127upon MAP because again, not only do we want to see our teachers grow, but that has a direct correlation to student outcomes. >> Appreciate. Thank you. >> Absolutely. Members of the board, do we have any further questions for Dr. Little Miss Creswell? Seeing that we have none, thank you very much. Thank you to both of you. Next item on the agenda is our Lonear Governance number 9.1, Lonear Governance Time Tracker Report. This will be done by Joseph. Joseph. >> Yes. Good evening, Mr. Board President, members of the board. Dr. Sornson. Um happy to bring you our Lonear governance time use tracker report for our November 5th meeting. Um as I always start off with um why are we doing this? We're doing this because of our um continuous improvement model governance that we're engaging with

128um to focusly excuse me to focus intensely and unapologetically on one primary objective and that is improving student outcomes. Um so our November 5th meeting was historically brief. Um coming in at 51 minutes. Um and of that time we spent 36 minutes on student outcomes. Um and then another 10 minutes um on adult outcomes. Um so bringing our our totals our percentage of time on student outcomes to 70 70 we'll round up 71 71% um of our meeting time. Um, so certainly super efficient use um on the thing of time on the things that we need to be doing um as a school district and a school board. I'll also take a sec a moment here to uh point us out a couple other um metrics that don't we don't typically haven't typically raised up.

129Um and that is to the far right lower right of the of the of the tracker. Um you can see where it says um um goal progress measures um and whether or not we've hit target. Um and so at our last board meeting um Dr. Little had shared um that we of GPMs that uh of the of three GPMs, two were on target. Um so just highlighting that piece of the tracker that typically um um we have it in the past. So with that I am happy to answer any questions. Members of the board, any questions for Joseph? >> No. Thank you. >> Hey, Joseph, I'm curious. Yes, sir. >> Do you have an average of where we're at to the 11th month? Like, would you happen to have that? >> Dr. will have that

130in her next presentation. >> That's pretty cool. I was just thinking about that. Like, do we have something that would be like in the 90s? No, I'm just kidding. Um, just to show us where we're at for the year. >> You'll have that for us. >> Okay. Okay. Okay, seeing that we don't have any further questions in uh particularly in this agenda item. Uh thank you Joseph. I appreciate the the good news. Next item on the agenda will be done by our conservator Dr. Bava 9.2 board self assessment using the LSG integrity instrument. >> Good evening, President Alvarez, Dr. Sorenson, and members of the board. This evening, um, we are going to begin our I think this is the fourth or the fifth quarter that we do our evaluation for the board. And as we've

131been discussing the entire length of this board meeting, we are talking about progress, tracking progress, right? Making sure that we're seeing student outcomes improve. Past meetings, we've talked about teacher progress, right? And so I want to mention to the community that the board is also tracking their progress by doing this u this um evaluation quarterly. And so this is based on the five pillars of the Texas framework for schoolboard development. It's based on these five areas. Vision and goals, progress and accountability, systems and processes, synergy and teamwork, and advocacy and engagement. So this is a rating scale. We start at the do not focus, do not meet focus level. Preparing to focus, approaches, meets and masters. So if you'll look at your implementation integrity instrument, we're starting with the first one, vision and goals. And

132three quarters ago, we scored a 12. Two quarters ago, we still stayed a 12. and one quarter ago we still stayed at 12. So I ask you board looking at um I want you to look at the approaches and then the meets focus. Sometimes you could fall behind. I don't think that's the case here but if you meet all of these then look at the masters and see if we qualify. Does anyone have a recommendation? >> I think we're still at meet focus. >> I would agree that we're still at a 12. Is there anybody that disagrees with that? >> Okay. So, we're at a meets focus. That's still good. In order to meet exit criteria, you have to be in meets focus at least in all those areas. >> Let's go to vision and

133goals two. The board has adopted goal progress measures aligned to each student outcome goal. Again, you've been a 12 the last two quarters. The quarter before that, you were at a one. So, we've made progress. >> 12. >> Does anyone dispute the 12? I concur with the 12. I think that we're still at a 12. Okay, let's go to vision and goals three. Again, two threequarters a code we're at a zero then nine and a nine. The board has adopted constraints. So the question here is are we still a nine or can we make it to the mast's level? >> Still a nine. >> Why are we still a nine? >> The community ownership of the construction >> community ownership and we still have time to do that. I think we've been making uh fantastic

134progress and so I'm comfortable with that nine and red meets focus. So let's stay with that nine. >> Moving on to vision and goals four. The board has adopted superintendent constraint progress measures. We had been a zero because we had not adopted the CPMs. We've since done that. What's keeping us from the five? What's keeping us from masters? >> Community ownership. It's that broad community ownership. And again, that's when the board as a as a whole is educating the community about the constraints, about the goals, go progress measures. This is the work that you need to do with the community, not necessarily the superintendent. >> Dr. Betta, when you state here, all board members, does it have to be all board or the majority? >> Um, it says all. >> So, it's got to be

135all in order for us to advance. >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Yes. It's a good question. >> And Dr. Bar, can I also ask a clarifying question, too? >> Sure. um is that I also want to point out that it says through involvement and communication with students, staff, and community members. Um it doesn't necessarily mean that like >> we've got a 100% of the community just >> correct. >> I just want community, >> right? I Right. I just want to clarify, you know, again, I'll work really hard to get 100%. But >> Dr. Sorten, you're doing a fabulous job of doing that. >> Yes. And I can always do better. Yes. And I can still do more and will do more, but I just again I want to, you know, just know what the bar

136is. >> I appreciate that very much. >> Yeah. Just like I like again the remark of all five I mean all of us to be in agreement. You know, it just seems like you would think it'd be the majority, right? But but I can understand that. >> Yes. Because again, I'm just looking at my my good friend Blanca over there and you know through involvement communication, right? Like >> Right. >> like >> Right. >> Yeah. We're doing that. >> Absolutely. And um President Algarez, >> the all board members that agree, you voted on this, so you did all agree to this. We have the record. >> No, no, no. I agree with that. I agree with I'm just saying that. Yeah. Okay. I hear what you're saying. It matters more in in subsequent sections. Let's

137go on to progress and accountability one. >> So last time we were able to go to a meets focus. We had been at a zero does not meet focus for the past three quarters before last time. So we're at a 12 now. So we're at a meets focus last time. Can we be a master's focus? >> How many in a row have to be >> for the quarter? >> Right. It has to be for the quarter. For the quarter. >> Uhhuh. Does anybody have any idea? Do you think Do you think we've made it to 50%. >> I think we're closer. Definitely. >> I think we actually have. >> Y'all are at masters. We're The average is 65%. >> So, congratulations. >> You did it. We've made it to masters on that one. And and

138board members, it's going to fluctuate. Today, we did we did not discuss student outcome data, so we're probably not going to have a good score for the next time, >> but it goes on the average. So, we're comfortable that with our uh board monitoring calendar, we have plenty of data to share in subsequent needs. >> You said 65%. >> Yes. >> Dr. Barrera, we just want to tell you in advance that we're going to debate you on that because we feel like we did talk about student outcome data today, but that we can have that discussion later. >> It has to be on the goals and GPMs specific. >> There was a complete >> trust me I I do this with the state all the time, >> right? So like discussion and discourse are always

139welcome. >> Just like you all have coaches, I have a coach and I do this with her. >> Little shrink down in his chair. >> Shame on you, Dr. No, it's there's a lot of work that needs to be done and and it's it's completely understand understandable. >> Let's move on to progress and accountability too. So, we have been at the does not meet focus. Where are we today? The board evaluates but does not interfere with progress toward improving student outcomes. >> Have we moved to preparing to focus? Can we say yes? >> Let's go to approaches. Do we meet all of those? >> Yes. >> Absolutely. >> Yes. >> Do we meets focus? Are we at meets focus? >> I think so. >> Well, this is a question for Dr. Sorenson. Are we are

140we using the staff use tracker and have we shared that with uh with the board? When was the last time we shared that? Do you have any? >> During our summer workshop. >> Oh, during the summer workshop. Okay. So, then we are at meets focus. >> Yes. >> Are we at mast's? >> I don't think so. This one's a really tough one. The ask here for masters is that the superintendent's evaluation be based only on student achievement uh student achievement outcomes. This is I this is very difficult to achieve but I'm very pleased to say that we are now a at a meets focus. >> Awesome. Congratulations guys. Let's move on to systems and processes. We've been a four at approaches. Does anyone think that we can go to meets? >> No public meetings, >>

141right? We're we're exceeding the three hours. We're getting a lot better, though. So, I want to congratulate you on that. Um, and we're getting better with the agendas and having uh less on the other agenda, but we have a little bit more work to do there. And that's okay. We're at we're at a four, which is approaches. Any questions on that one? >> No. No. >> Okay. Let's move to advocacy and engagement. The board promotes the vision. >> I think we're three at least. >> We haven't hosted community. No, we hosted >> think the second board. No, >> but no, we're still one. >> Oh, because we are still the board hasn't. >> We're one. >> What's the discussion? >> We're one we haven't hosted the community meetings to discuss progress towards student outcomes. >>

142Right. >> The district has but not the board. >> And that's okay. We've made a lot of progress already. So, we're still at preparing to focus. >> Perfect. >> And the last one is synergy and teamwork. The board works collaboratively and with the superintendent to lead toward the vision. >> Diana, I'm still reading the last one. I'm sorry. >> Oh, I'm so sorry. >> Um, reading the preparing to focus. >> The board has a two-way communication system >> with the uh staff and community members. >> We haven't done that. >> Correct. So we're at does not meet focus. >> No. Listen for and discuss the vision and values of their staff and community members. >> We've if you can if you can share in the microphone so we can hear the discussion. >> Yeah. We

143were talking about the two-way communication system that um are the town halls that we had. Um, can I check that box? >> Oh, that's right. So, we're at a do not, right? >> No, we're we're saying that the town hall sessions did serve that purpose. >> You're talking about advocacy and engagement. >> Yes. Okay. >> Go back one slide. >> She said zero. So, we're a one, right? >> That's good. >> Yeah, >> I'm comfortable. I'm comfortable with a one because you guys have been coming to some of those community meetings. >> Okay. But so, because we have been going, board members have been going, not that it's >> this one's not set to where it's like all board members need to be there. It's >> You see how that can be confusing? Some of

144them say >> The next one is that you're hosting it. >> The next one says the board has provided sign. The board has hosted. >> Mhm. It's because some say all and some say just as long as we >> So are we good with the one? >> Yes. >> Okay. Thank you. Thank you for that, Dr. Anandis. Appreciate the clarification and the discussion. The last one, synergy and teamwork. The board works collaboratively and with the superintendent to lead toward the vision. >> I say we're annoying, but that's just me. If you look at the third >> bullet under under me focus. >> Thank you. >> The training, right? >> It's the training. >> Yes. >> I think we're at a nine. >> Three. But >> we're at a three. And And yes, Mr. Alvarez, that

145one is all that means every single one of you. >> Every member. >> Yeah. Get it all. >> Marty, >> get me on those strings. >> So, it's so three. >> Wake up, Marty. >> Okay. What's What's the total? >> Oh, we said it was a three. >> So, what's our total? >> Tell them. I I'm gonna I'm gonna take care of it. Mom, I got it. >> I know. I know. >> My fault. >> 65. >> Good. >> I think >> good. >> Very quickly did the math. made. >> So, I want to call your attention to our scores that we have received. Oh, I didn't put them here. So, three quarters ago, we started with a 20 and before that, the quarter before that, I think we were at a four. Then the

146next quarter, we moved up to a 41. The following quarter, you guys scored a 57 on your board evaluation. this quarter. You're at a 65. This is slow and steady. This is great progress. I I'm very pleased with it. Board members, is there do any of you have any comments about the evaluation or your progress? >> Before I open it up for any questions from the board, I just want to tell you that we've always enjoyed doing this exercise with you, Adana. So, thank you for that, Dr. Ba. I did this with another board recently and they went down 15 points and they they were just they couldn't believe it and and I said progress isn't linear. >> Sometimes we fall, sometimes we dip. >> That just means and that's what this is for. I

147said that's what this instrument is for to let us know when when we need to work in an area and it lets us know what specific things we need to work on. So I'm very pleased with your progress board. >> Thank you very much. anyone? >> Yeah, I'm glad we've made progress. I I'd still like to contest that I think we're a little bit higher based on the measures, but um you can provide us more examples on how to improve. >> I I appreciate that. And and again, as I mentioned, I argue with my coach quite often about these because there there are some things that could be left to interpretation. So, okay. >> Thank you very much, Dr. Pera. Enjoy your trip back and thank you again for joining us today. Ladies and gentlemen,

148next item on the agenda is our consent agenda item. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve the consent agenda. >> Do I have a second? >> I second. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. >> All right. Next agenda item is agenda item number 11. Closed meeting will be held for the purposes authorized by the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code sections 551.001, 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, 551.076, 551.129, and 551.0821 0821 concerning and all purposes permitted by the act including but not limited to the action and purposes listed uh below. We are now going into close session and it is 8:06 p.m. Okay, we are back from close session and it is 8:54 p.m. Before we proceed with um agenda item number 13, I'm going to

149ask Blanca to make your way to the podium. I know she's got um something she'd like to share with everyone in the community. >> Good evening, board president, um board members, and superintendent. Um at this time this week, La Hoya had a very um tragic moment and we did lose one of our student from Palm View High School. So we want to keep um Palm Beach High School community and family of Gilbert Coa, senior student at Palm View High School in our thoughts. Um and so I would like to do a moment of silent for our student Thank you. >> Thank you very much for that. Thank you very much. >> Our next item on the agenda is number 13, action and discussion items. Approval of English language development platform for emergent bilingual students. quotation

150through purchasing cooperatives. Um, do I have a motion? >> I move to approve 13.1. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. >> Next item is 13.2. Approval of solid waste services CSP number 2025-9 extension. Do I have a motion? >> Move to approve number 13.2. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Next item is 13.3 approval of Lonear governance board self assessment using the LSG integrity instrument. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve item 13.3. >> Do I have a second? >> I second. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Next item

151is 13.4. considering take possible action to propose the termination of chapter 21 term contract employees and authorize the superintendent to send notice of proposed termination to employees. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve item 13.4. >> Do I have a second? >> I second a motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 13.5. Consider and take possible action to terminate a chapter 21 term contract employee. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve item 13.5. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is our calendar. November 17th through the 21st, American Education Week. November

15220th, Educational Support Professionals Day. November 21st, 2025, National Parental Involvement Day. November 22nd, Substitute Educ Educator Day. November 24th through the 28th, Thanksgiving break, central administration will be closed and there will be no classes. December 2nd, National Special Education Day. December 3rd, special called Board Meeting. This will be our student recognition at the Alejandro Alex Science Performing Arts Center at 6 PM. December 4th uh will be our fifth annual tree lining ceremony at Nelly Schuner Central Administration Building at 6 PM. Um before we adjourn, do I have any comments from the superintendent or any board members? >> Dr. Sornson. >> Thank you, board president and Blanca. Thank you very much for um lifting up our student, our Palm View community. Um it is never um easy as a superintendent to um watch our community grieve.

153Um we are here for our students. We are here for the Palm View community and we are here for the family in every way that we can possibly be. Um and losing a student, losing a son, um is tragic. And so I want to acknowledge that as a superintendent and as a mom. And with that also being said, it leans into Thanksgiving break. And those are the moments where you just take a step back and realize what you have to be grateful for and thankful for. And so um both of those things um one after the other. I'm just really grateful to be here in this community and I'm grateful for all of you and for being a part of this La Hoya ISD family. But I really want to wish all of our employees,

154our families, our students, our staff, everyone, take a break. Take a break. You've worked really hard so far this semester. We'll come back to three hard weeks that are really important. And so taking care of yourself and taking care of your families and just sharing in moments of gratitude um during this break um are really important to restore and revive um and rejuvenate. Thank you. >> Well said, Dr. Sorenson, and thank you for the recognition of the young man we just lost. Our prayers do go out with the family and his friends and especially our community. Members of the board, do we have any other things we'd like to say before we adjourn? Our next meeting will be in December. Anybody like to say anything before we adjourn? uh saying seeing that we don't have

155any I would like to take this opportunity to wish all of you a happy Thanksgiving restful and uh enjoy it with your families and friends and uh it certainly has been a pleasure uh up to now uh to work with each and every one of you. I think we've we've stated that multiple times and so we're very fortunate and I give thanks that I work with such great administrators, great staff, great students. It's unfortunate the the news we heard earlier in the week, but again, we're a strong community and I have no doubt that we'll get through this. So, with that said, if I don't have any other remarks from the board, do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> I move to adjourn this meeting at 9:00 p.m. >> Do I have a second?

156>> I second a motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Ladies and gentlemen, we are journ