001Oh, hello. Good evening, everyone. Uh, it's 6:00 p.m. I go ahead and call I'm going to go ahead and call this meeting to order. First item on the agenda will be roll call. If I can ask you to let me know if you're present, starting from my right. >> Carlos Margo, present. >> Anita Chavez, present. >> Alisa Pñena, present. Rosalo Hernandez present. >> Sento Jr. present. >> All right. So, we do have quorum. And just for the record, uh board member uh Jessica Ao is not here. But we do have quorum. Next item on the agenda is our pledge of allegiance. If you're able to do so, I ask that you please stand and face the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which
002it stands. One nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. >> Thank you. You may be seated. Ladies and gentlemen, next item on the agenda is our public comment period. Uh if you have signed up for public comment, again, let me remind you that you do have three minutes. After three minutes, I will ask Miss Chavez to go ahead and inform you that your time is up. If you have signed up, we ask that you clearly state your name and you may proceed. Do we have anyone who has signed up for public comment? >> We do not have any public comments for tonight. >> Okay. Seeing that we don't have anyone that has signed up for public comment, we'll move on to the next agenda item. Staff recognitions, I'm going to ask a
003board member Anita Chavez and Dr. Carlos Marggo if you could make your way to front of the DAS please during this portion of our meeting doing the honors this morning is or this afternoon is our is going to be our executive director Mr. Joe Pena of athletics our athletic director Mr. Pñena it's all yours >> thank you good afternoon Dr. Sorson uh Mr. Alvarez and school board members. La Hoya ISD is proud to celebrate a major honor for one of our very own. Coach Manuel Ricky Garcia, head baseball coach at Palm View High School, has been selected by the Texas High School Baseball Association to serve as coach at the prestigious High School Baseball All-Star game next summer in Round Rock, Texas. This selection is one of the highest recognitions in Texas high school baseball.
004Coach has received it reflects coaches Garcia's years of dedication to his players, his program, and to the sport of baseball across our district. His leadership has not only elevated Palm View's program, but inspired student athletes throughout La Hoya ISD. When the best of the best gather in Round Rock next summer, one of them will be wearing La Hoya colors representing Palm View High School, our district, and our community on the statewide stage. Please join me in congratulation, congratulating, I'm sorry, Coach Garcia for his outstanding accomplishment for the High School Texas All-Star Baseball Game. Congratulations. >> Congratulations. >> Thank you. Mr. Pñena, if you don't mind, is it okay if I ask Mr. Garcia to say a few words? >> I know. I know he's very shy, but I'm going to see if he can give
005it a try. Mr. Garcia, would you like to say a few words? >> No. Okay. >> You're very welcome. It's welld deserved. >> I appreciate that. >> Great. Thank you. I have no doubt that Coach Garcia will represent not only the La Hoya family, but the entire South Texas region. So again, congratulations to our very own Coach Garcia. >> Yes. [Applause] Ladies and gentlemen, next item on the agenda. I know we have SB Pearson, uh, our chief our chief of operation and infrastructure, who's going to give us the honors of recognizing our custodian department. appreciation day observed uh which is uh was held October 2nd, 2025. SP >> Good evening, Mr. President, Madam Superintendent, it is my honor SP Pearson proud to serve as your chief operations officer. I have here Miss Ludy, our custodial
006director, and a couple of her team members, and we're here to recognize the celebration of uh custodial day on October the 2nd. We were very fortunate to be able to Miss Ludy, come on up and join us. We were very fortunate to be able to handdel each one of our custodians to their campus uh and brought a jacket with the school logo on it, a school district logo on it. And that was spearheaded by Ludy and her administrative team. Uh so our custodians proudly take care of about 2 million square feet for us in the district. And so we wanted to take the opportunity to recognize those guys. So thank you to our custodial team, Miss Ludy, and what they do for our district. >> Yes. Come on. Come on. Come on. [Music] >> So
007sweet. >> Woohoo. [Applause] I know these ladies are very shy, but I do want to take the opportunity to share something with them. Uh there's not a day that goes by that we don't come into these campuses. We're either in a building like this or visiting one of our schools. And it gives us pride to see how not not only how attractive they are, but how clean our buildings are. So, thank you to not only the custodial staff who serve as the front line to our schools, but to those that um oversee the department. So, I just want to take this opportunity. These individuals that we just recognized are not usually recognized and they're very shy as you can see, but they do very good work and we're very proud of the folks that we
008have working for this for the fine school here in in La Hoya. So, I don't know if anybody else would like to say anything, but I certainly take pride. My mother was a my grandmother was a custodian so I know how important that position is and she took great pride in in making sure that her classrooms were clean and stuff like that. So I'm very grateful to them. So thank you SB. All right. You may move on to agenda item 5.3 which is the recognition of the La Hoy ISD child nutrition service department celebrated national school lunch week. You may proceed. >> Mr. President, in concert with our celebrations we have Mr. Hernandez here who's our child nutrition director and Mr. Hernandez is here. October the 13th through the 17th, we celebrated National School Lunch
009Week where all of our kids were awarded with slushes and orange milk and our lines were decorated uh in order to honor our team members that were served on the front line of our child nutrition department. So, uh we'd like to take this opportunity to recognize Mr. Hernandez and his efforts and the entire department of child nutrition. Thank you. Thank you. [Music] Thank you so much. >> Congratulations. >> Again, very welld deserved. Next item on the agenda is recognition of the La Hoy Transportation Department for National School Safety Week on October 20th through the 24th. SP. >> Yes, sir. It is indeed an honor again in celebration in concert with our celebrations here today. We have Mr. Joe Alanise and his assistant director here to recognize National School Bus Safety Week. Uh this is so
010much of a celebration till we spent a lot of time this week in training and making sure all of our safety protocols are intact. And so uh Mr. Alanise and his team members are here to uh be recognized in the efforts of safety of our children. Mr. Alanise >> Congratulations gentlemen. Congratulations. >> Thanks, Joe. >> Thank you so much. Thank you. >> So, before we move on to agenda item 5.5, I just want to share with you all that many of us that serve on the school board, we do a lot of traveling. And so we travel not only this uh this area, this region, the 4 county region of South Texas, but we get an opportunity to travel north of here, whether it's in San Antonio Corpus or the Kingsville area. And one of
011the things that I always find pride in is when I see our school buses parked somewhere either in Macallen or they're on the road and uh the kids are well disciplined, the buses are clean, the folks that are manning the buses are so professional. Uh, they probably think I'm weird because I just go up to them and wave at them. I mean, I don't tell them who I am, but they're probably thinking, but I just wanted to let you know as being to the staff, how um what an honor it is to be working with the fine people that you have in transportation for everything they do to take care of our kids. So, thank you for that. Anyone else have anything to say before we move on? Dr. Sornson. So, I just want to
012take a moment and um really thank the three groups that we just recognized and call them out and understand their importance in our district. We talked about custodial. That group of individuals make sure that our environment is clean and ready and pristine for instruction to happen and for our children to thrive. We talked about child nutrition, the very folks who feed our children and make sure that they are wellfed, nourished with a smile every single day. sometimes three meals a day and a little snack on the side. And so none of that is separate from learning. And then we've got our transportation department that ensures that our children get wherever they need to go to school, home from school, to athletics events, to fine arts events, two UIL events, everywhere that they need to be.
013And so I think it's really important for us to recognize that learning doesn't happen without those three groups of employees. And so I just want to thank those three groups of employees and the very leaders that lead those departments because without you, without those employees, all of the instruction just isn't possible. And so thank you for the work that you do. Thank our beloved employees who work in those departments and who make all the work of our educators possible. So, thank you so much. >> Thank you, Dr. Sorenson. Yes. [Applause] >> Next item on the agenda, ladies and gentlemen, is recognition of Texas Education Human Resources Day. This will be done by Miss Miller. Miss Miller. Good evening. On September 5th of 2025, Greg Abbott, the governor of Texas, released the following statement. Texas is
014proud of our commitment to a quality education system that places students firmly on the path to a lifetime of excellence and achievement. An integral part of this success of our schools are the human resources professionals who play a critical role in our education system. Vital throughout all industries, human resources workers are particularly important in education. These hard-working men and women are skilled and efficient in talent acquisition and retention. By recognizing potential teachers, human resources professionals surround our students with highly capable educators who will develop the next generation into the leaders of tomorrow. At this time, I encourage all Texans to recognize the importance of human resources and education. I commend the profession's continued commitment to meeting the needs of students and teachers alike as these professionals pave the way for a better, brighter future for
015the next leaders of our great state. Therefore, I, Greg Abbott, Governor of Texas, do hereby proclaim October 8th, 2025 to be Education Human Resources Day. So, I am so proud of my small but amazing team that recruits and um pulls and retains highquality educators within the district. And I have a couple of them here tonight. So, we all come on up and just thank you. And we had an amazing human resources day. We had lunch and they had a token of appreciation and Dr. Schwarzson even came and joined us. So, it was a great human resources day. But thank you to that team and everything that they do. >> Thank you. >> So, Miss Miller, are they getting used to the food of South Texas? in South Texas. >> Sir, >> are they getting used
016to the food here? >> Of course, there's amazing food in South Texas. You just can't step on the scale after you move here, right? >> Well, that portion we we will omit. So, um, next, before we move on to the next agenda item, and I turn it over to Dr. Sorenson, I do want to recognize that our board member Jessica Choa has joined us. And so, for the record, we do, as I stated earlier, we do have quorum, but everyone is present tonight. So, next item on the agenda is item number six, superintendent updates. I'm going to turn this over to Dr. Sorenson, who will do the honors of identifying and recognizing the two individuals that'll be doing a presentation. >> Thank you, board president. I Before we move on though, I really do also
017want to lift up this small but mighty team in human capital and talent development. Um, you guys work really hard. you make sure that we're staffed, that we're cared for, that everything about our um compensation is what it needs to be, service records, all the things that happen behind the scenes to make sure that we're supporting our employees, right? There's a lot more than just staffing and recruiting. It's about retention. It's about talent development. It's about professional development, supporting our first year teachers. Um, so I really also before we just move on want to thank you, um, the leaders in your department, but all of the work that happens behind the scenes with your entire department. Um, they are invaluable to the function of our our great district. So, thank you. So, moving on to
018superintendent updates. Um, I would ask for um, Mr. SP Pearson to come forward um and really give us an update around transportation optimization. Um just giving you again a little bit of a runway. Um I'm very excited to move this um conversation forward as a district. Um we have begun to really think about the operations side of the house in a really deep way. And so one of the areas of the operations side of the house is transportation. Really thinking about every point that we have that impacts instruction because again transportation doesn't sit outside of instruction. I want to make this real for our parents who I'm sure experience this every day. When children get picked up from their homes, we want to make sure that they get to school on time. We want to
019make sure that they get home safely. And so we need to take a look at ourselves as a district to say, how are we doing at that? Um, are we doing it to the best capacity that we can? Um, are we up todate with the most modern technology? Do we have everything in place that we need to have in place to make sure that students are picked up, dropped off, and everything in between safely? This is directly tied to our strategic plan and strategic priority number five. And so I'm very excited to move this conversation forward and I'm very excited to have Mr. Espie Pearson lead us in this conversation. So SP, thank you. >> Thank you so much, Madam Superintendent. Uh, as she said, one of the first charges that she gave me upon
020being employed by the district is to look at operational efficiency throughout all of our divisions of operations, most importantly the division of transportation as you stated because that directly impacts student academic outcomes. And so we wanted to do just that. wanted to come in, look at some of the challenges or opportunities that are being presented in the department, look at ways that we can become more efficient to better serve students. And so that's been the intent behind the deep dive of our work that we've taken uh done so far in the department. So obviously, you know, as we look at our mission and vision, everything that we do in operations is uh tied back to our strategic plan as well as supports the mission and vision of the district. And so, uh, we want to
021make sure that we're addressing that. Strategic priority number five is more particularly the point that we're, uh, emphasizing as we the work that we're doing here. We can also point back to strategic priority number one, excellence and leadership. In order to do some of the work that we're doing right now, it's going to require some some, uh, strategic thoughts and thinking of our leaders, uh, some in-depth work and deep diving into the work that we're doing in order to make sure that we're delivering for kids. So both of those priorities were addressed as we uh went into this work. Why does transportation matter? As the superintendent said, you know, so eloquently early, uh primarily is just to support student academic outcomes. If we get our kids to school on time, we can maximize instruction, which
022maximize their learning opportunity, which improves student achievement. So from a holistic standpoint, the idea behind this is to make sure that we're giving our our students the best chance that we can by optim optimizing their instructional time. Uh we've laid out some of the things here that we identify as another reason why it matter. Of course, it's equitable access to all of our kids. Uh supports attendance. It builds trust with our community. uh it connects our academic schedules with other extracurricular items and things that we have going on throughout the district where so that our kids can get the full learning experience and then it serves as the backbone for student success throughout efficiency in our district. So we're proud of those things and and how we support how transportation support the student learning environment.
023Again, strategic priority number five, operational excellence from a holistic standpoint. We want to make sure that our buses are running optimally. Obviously, we don't want our kids on the road for long periods of time. Obviously, we want to deliver our kids to school and drop them off at home in a safe fashion. We want to be good stewards of the taxpayers's dollars. We want to make sure that we're doing the best that we can to optimize those dollars. And then ultimately, everything ties back to student success. I like to call this slide some of the opportunities instead of some of the challenges that we've discovered in the department coming in from a professional responsibility standpoint. And this is basically stating the obvious. Obviously, there's some issues historically with our kids getting to school late. Uh
024there's some historic issues with persistent driver shortages and overextended routes. Our fleet, as you guys are well acutely aware, our fleet is aging and it's time for us to make some uh tough decisions as it relate to that. Our the district demographics, our district geographic layout is changing. Uh our district is expanding uh to the more of the rural states. And so we need to look at our geocoding and make sure that we have a a true picture of where our students are living and how we get those kids to school. Uh some of our internal systems, our internal controls are outdated. It's time for us to update those and keep those updated on a regular basis to make sure that we're efficient with our routing uh designs. And then just making sure that some
025of our uh unfunded things that we're aware of so that we can inform you guys so that you guys can make decisions as to how we move forward with those opportunities. So with that said, we brought in uh an external group. We we thought that it was important to bring in an external group that specialized in uh transportation audit in K12 throughout the state. We're actually under contract with this group with our uh current routing software system, which is Transfinder. So we reached out to Transfinder, who specializes in this with all of our districts in the state, to come in and take a look at all things uh operational logistics as it relates to transportation. And so the idea and and I I shared with the cabinet, the superintendent as well as our leadership team
026on the transportation side, the idea behind this audit is to pull the onion back to tell us all the opportunities that we have to be better and uh give us a platform or the launch pad for us to make improvements so that we can deliver a better quality not only for our student success but to build the trust and uh and transparency with our community so that we can provide a better service to our community. And so that's basically the the why for the audit. And some of the the audit, the things that will be audited is the condition of our fleet and some of our maintenance practices to help that make sure that we're uh again being good stewards of the taxpayers's dollars and managing our fleet and getting the full life expectancy out
027of our buses. We want to look at routing designs. We want to make sure that you know our buses are not overcrowded or they're not underutilized that the optimization of our routes are efficient to where uh we're fun operating efficiently. We want to look at our staff and overtime. You know, obviously, uh, with all the extracurricular runs and things that we have that are outside of our regular routes, it drives overtime cost and, uh, transportation. And so, we want to look at that and make sure that we're presenting for the best model. And then obviously the the very lowhanging fruit is just f the fuel usage itself. You know, the more our buses on the road, the more buses on the road, the more trips are running, uh, the more it costing fuel. And so
028the purpose of this the purpose of the initiative is to give us a comprehensive look into what's going on in our transportation department from fleet management to operational systems to route optimizations to independent assessments just the whole gambit. We're going to take this in a phased approach and so that phased approach has already started. We wanted to take the month of uh November October where we're having a lot of internal well actually we started those internal planning conversations in July when we were given the charge and so we started formalizing a thought process on some of those things that we can find professionally inhouse you know things that we know that are problem and immediately starting adding solutions to those and then of course once we get the findings from the auditors we'll we'll take
029our uh corrective actions as it relate to those things and so the month of October and November spent uh when we're identifying as phase Phase one is is spent going through that audit. We actually just completed that audit on last Friday and we're waiting on the uh finance report to come in. We already had our closeout conversation with the auditor and so some of the things that they've identified, we were able to immediately start putting action to those things uh in order to help make route efficiency. Uh and so the next phase of this or the next step is for us to as we talked about is to look at some of those corrective action plans. How many of those things can we get implemented right away? How many of those things are we going
030to rely on professional or contracting services to come in and support us with and getting those things done? That'll take place in the month of November through January. And then from January is where it's going to be time for us to come and start having uh vetting our theory of a action. We believe that every theory of action should be tested against itself. So obviously we want to get out to the campuses, talk to the principles, talk to the executive principles, executive directors and make sure that we all the stones that we're maybe not thinking about as it relate to transportation is being exposed and uncovered. So that when we're ready to come back and present to you guys and present to our community and our families what our our plan is for routes moving
031forward that we've thought about everything and covered as much as we can. And so obviously we want that to take place or ideally that'll take place around January. Around February and March is where we want to partner with our campuses. We want to go out to the campuses during their open houses uh when any type of town halls or whatever they have on the campus opportunity. We're going to have the table set up there to where we can have intimate conversations with a parent to answer their direct questions about current routing concerns, uh, future routing, uh, projections and what our thoughts are on that and and make sure that we have all the internal information uh, so that we're planning appropriately for our roll out uh, potentially that'll happen between uh, April and a I'm
032sorry, April and May for the roll out to start in August. That's what our our plan is of our milestones and timelines. some of the things that we've identified as success measures. Obviously, uh the baseline will be things that are act that we're actually implementing right now. We know uh from a professional standpoint that there's a lot of opportunity to get better and we're not we're not bashful behind that. We're not hiding behind that. Uh we're not in the clouds. We know that there's plenty of opportunities to get ourselves better from an efficiency standpoint and a logistic standpoint and most importantly getting our kids to school on time. So from that, you know, just the baseline on that to post implementation, are our kids getting to school on time? Is there uh direct evidence of
033us uh being able to recruit recoup savings from buses being pulled off the road? The number of buses we dispatch or deploy on the road as well as our overtime. Will we see immediate impact in our overtime because the opportunities are being decreased from additional uh runs that are being gr um ran from that standpoint. Right now we have a huge contracted service uh commitment right now because of our maintenance department in the trans our ma our fleet maintenance department and transportation uh obviously with the restrictions of not having diesel mechanics. A lot of this has to be outsourced and so we want to make sure that we're being efficient as that. We want to look at the amount of time that our buses are down uh because that causes a constraint or constraint for
034us as as a department as well. We want to make sure that we we have a very fluid and efficient system even to the point of if it if we need to consider it some back coming back to request to bring internal diesel mechanics in house. Um driver retention and satisfaction obviously you know the more the shortage we have a driver the more that we're asking to do it brings a hardship to that staff group and uh it's you know it's it's a challenge for those guys. they they want to work regular shifts and when we're asking them to pull doubles. We're asking to run extra runs because of shortages, it's a challenge on those and they've been very gracious to this point and support the district and student academic achievement and student opportunities through
035enrichment and extracurricular, but we want to minimize those opportunities as much as we can to be able to make sure that we're being good stewards of the dollars. We've talked about the fuel efficiency opportunities that we'll recover in that as well. and then ultimately the the trust and the parent satisfaction that we're going to gain in the end from uh being a more efficient group. We talked a little bit about the community engagement opportunities. Obviously, there's got to be a whole communication plan as it relates to this. You know, it starts with our internal conversation with our administration with campuses, our cabinet administration, making sure we're vetting it out with our superintendent and and the appropriate board conversations. We want to make sure that we're having our conversation with our transportation leadership and and our
036transportation drivers that are leaders representative that that meet with us to make sure that we're understanding all perspectives as relate to that. And then extending this out to our community to make sure that we're hearing the voices of our parents, we're hearing the voices of our students and understanding some of those challenges to make sure that we're uh providing the best model that we can moving forward. Ultimately, we want to build a sustainable system. The district is over 100 years old and to my historical uh knowledge that I can find I think we've provided transportation for about 70 plus years. I do know that our current routing system hasn't been revamped or overhauled in about 20 years and this should take place about every two to three years for efficiency. So we know right now
037we're behind the eightball and we've got to do some work in that department in that area and we're working uh full steam ahead on that right now. So ultimately what we're proposing is a systematic overhaul to our routing system that we want to make sure that we're encompassing all those things that we are uh needing to from an obligation standpoint and we're looking at those things that we're looking at as uh fringe opportunities that are unfunded by the state and making sure that we're making the best decisions as it relate to those opportunities moving forward. Just a snapshot of the timeline. I kind of gave you the over the the balcony view as the superintendent like to say. I don't want to go through this line by line of verbatim, but we'll be happy to
038answer questions about the timeline from a holistic standpoint. We do realize that seven months is very aggressive, which is why we're kneedeep into the work right now. And so, uh, uh, we we'll be hopefully ready to present this by May in a satisfactory term and be ready to roll this out come August. Some of the things that we're we're expecting a fiscal return, obviously, it's it's the very low hanging fruit. If we can uh maximize our buses that are on the road, optimize the number of routes that are on the road and the number of buses, obviously there's savings that are associated with that and we want to make sure that we're optimizing that. Expected returns is we're expected to get our kids to school on time. I mean, that's that's the bottom line. Our
039kids, we're all here in the business of instruction. We support everything that's happening with academics and so we want to make sure that we're doing our part on that. We want to try to do our best to make sure we shorten our route times. Obviously, we have some challenges in certain parts of our district that is in the rural area. And so, we'll have to look at that, make sure we have the appropriate number of buses assigned to those areas uh to be able to accommodate the the route times that we'd like to have. And so, we want to look at that and then of course uh ultimately increase parent and community satisfaction. Those are some of the expected returns. With that said, I'm going to ask that Mr. Joe Alanise come up to join
040me at the podium podium while we filled any questions that you guys may have for us. Members of the board, do you have any questions for this question? Go ahead, Dr. Marggo. >> Mr. uh Pearson, I just quick question. You mentioned shortage, driver shortage being an issue. How that is that? >> Well, right now I I think that's an an overstatement. Right now, and I got Miss Miller here and Mr. Polynes to support. As of last week, or actually I'll say as of Tuesday. I believe all of our routes were actually filled as of Tuesday. Is that correct? So, actually right now all of our routes are filled. where we're having issues is right now our routes are filled with no spares or subs and so if anybody calls in that's where we get into
041a a bind. So, uh we we have to look at that from a staffing perspective. >> Okay. Thank you. >> Um Mr. Pearson, did I hear you correctly when you said it's been 20 years since there's since there's been an upgrade in your transportation optimization system? >> Well, not the optimization system, but our route overhaul. It's been about 20 years since we've changed the model of our routes. And you said it's recommended every >> about every two to three years. So the mapping changes. So we have to coordinate with geocoding and mapping with transfinder. Our student management system also partners has a part in that as well. And so as communities develop and grow, we have to continue to modernize our system and make sure that we're accommodating those additional h rooftops that are popping
042up in our community. >> Thank you. >> Yes, Mr. Ch. >> Mr. Pearson, how many buses do we have in total? So right now, and Mr. Alanise, kick me if I'm wrong, we have about 168 buses in our fleet. We run about 130 buses on routes. Okay. >> And then how often do we know the exact number that need maintenance? >> So right now we are building a vehicle replacement schedule for you guys. And I I'm I'm not prepared to to give you that number on record today, but we are working on a vehicle replacement schedule for you guys to be able to present at some point once we vet it out with cabinet in our and our business and finance department. >> Thank you. Uh Mr. Pearson, can you just for the public's knowledge
043talk a bit about a vehicle replacement schedule and what best practice is around vehicle replacement? So as a part of our vehicle replacement responsibility uh just like any other capital improvement or capital investment, we have to put together a projected plan uh for replacement of those vehicles even that includes preventative maintenance, restorative maintenance and then to outright replacement of that vehicle. And so uh historically our best practice for the state for buses and and that that uh replacement schedule goes for white fleet as well as buses. But for buses in particular, we like to be on an eight-year about 120,000 mile replacement schedule. Right now, we're on something like a 12 or 13 year closer closer to about 150,000 milei schedule. And that would work if we had appropriate maintenance personnel to service our buses
044in the department. And right now, we don't have certified diesel mechanics. And so, that poses a challenge for us. On the white fleet, we'd like to be a little bit more efficient with our white fleet. Obviously, that's more uh we're talking not the student occupied white fleet. We're talking more of service vehicles. We'd like to be in in the 8 to 10 year range. Anywhere around 100 to 120,000 miles on those vehicles as well. >> And as long as you're talking about vehicles, I look at my chief of police back there who I've had this conversation with. And so would that be as applicable to his fleet of vehicles as well, that kind of replacement schedule? >> Thank you so much for asking that question and allowing me to answer that out loud. Part of
045the pain points that I have right now as a chief operations and infrastructure is the notion that all vehicle fleet does not live in the house of our transportation department. Our transportation director should be responsible for all things with four wheels and a motor. And so that would uh Dr. Sorson, that would include our police fleet and the replacement of that. And so we're actually in the process now of working with business and finance to fine-tune or streamline all of those processes so that we can get that under his house to be able to service those vehicles appropriately. Thank you sir. >> I would like to uh just encourage you guys for when we do the uh meetings for the parents uh allow maybe emails or texts some other forms uh so that the parents
046can relate their concerns other than just the meeting in case they can't make it there. >> Yes ma'am. Thank you so much. And our plan is after we get the information back from Transfinder and our routing optimization, we'll visit with the communication department and make sure that we have the most efficient communication, two-way communication with our parents and roll out plan for that. Thank you for that. >> I have another question if I may. >> Board member, >> do our bus systems have the um capability of GPS tracking? >> Yes, ma'am. They they do, but we're actually in the process of upgrading that as a part of safe cycle one. Uh so we have GPS tracking but we do not have student tracking. And so as a part of modernizing our entire route and fleeting
047system uh that's one of the proposals that we presented to the superintendent as uh part of our plan for moving forward. >> Okay. >> But currently we do have GPS on those buses. Yes ma'am. >> So then the principal can track where the bus is or >> I don't know that the principal has capability to do that right now. I do know that that ability lies in the transportation leadership right now. Uh that's where we have to review our software and licenses to see how many people we can extend that opportunity to right now. I can tell you we don't have that capability to be able to extend it out. Now, but as we move forward with our software upgrades, that will be part of our forward facing uh transparency. >> And do we have
048current positions open for bus drivers? >> I don't. >> We do. Yes. We just reviewed these today. >> I thought we just all of them. So if we do, it's two or three. It's a minimum of bus drivers, but we do have uh diesel mechanic positions open currently as well. >> Okay, appreciate it. Thank you. >> Those are all very good questions. Uh before I ask some of the questions that I have for you and I'd like to reiterate what uh Dr. Anand said, I think it's very important because this is going to be such a sensitive topic to many folks since it's been over 20 years and like you said, we've been in the transportation business for about 70 now. uh that this get conveyed to those that are not only listening but to
049our audience how important this is going to be because there are going to be some modifications. I think there are going to be some pain points that folks may not agree with or they may not be happy with but I appreciate the fact that you will be meeting with you know not only students principles but especially the the public and and I also appreciate the transparency. So thank you for I know you guys have a tough job ahead of you, but I'm also thinking that you've con, you know, you've you've spoken to other folks that are in very similar situations because it seems like whenever I talk to other school board members, the first thing that's always discussed is not the phone issue, not the other stuff. It's always our buses are old, we need
050new buses, we need new vehicles. So, it's interesting that we're discussing this tonight. So, I appreciate that. >> And I can tell you, Mr. president as a operation leader for about the past 15 years. This is not unique to Lowa. This is across the state. And so we're going to do our part to make sure that we clean this up and and make sure that we're presenting a model that is sustainable for the next 20 years. >> I appreciate that, Mr. Lennise. >> Like just like Mr. Pearson was me mentioning, we're excited for this uh launch and uh ready to continue giving the best service possible to all our students and community. Thank you for for the support so we can continue doing this. >> Thank you. I >> I you know, unfortunately, I haven't
051had the opportunity to visit our fleet and so I'm curious, do we have do we have a fleet department? I mean, excuse me for my ignorance for not being in that department or going over there to visit, but do we have an operations where we have mechanics and people that fix and repair? Okay, good. I wasn't aware. >> I probably should make my way over there. station. >> Yeah, we currently count with two uh two two facilities. >> Great. >> We have one here uh north of the football stadium and we have one located over there by uh 107 and Western Road. Corner of 107 and Western Road. >> Thank you. Thank you. Members of the board, do you have any questions, Miss Oah? >> No. All right, you may proceed. SP, are you got
052anything else or we turn it over to Miss Chris or >> No, that's it. >> That's it. Okay, >> it's Dr. Little now. >> All right, Dr. Little you may proceed on next agenda item. Great presentation. So SB, thank you uh for that. You and Mr. Alanise uh for taking time to explain to us the importance of of what you all are doing and again I appreciate the transparency and the fact that you'll be meeting with our the constituents of this fine city uh town. Okay. So next will be our um will be Dr. Little. And Dr. Little, what are you going to cover? We have our next lonear governance update with our goals and GPMs. >> Here we go. All right. It's all yours, Dr. Little. >> Thank you, Mr. President. Good evening, everyone.
053Uh we are going to share this evening update on how we're doing at the beginning of the year uh with our reading data, specifically coming from MAP and MAP reading fluency. This obviously always is a direct connection to our vision and mission and and really working towards our promise uh for educational excellence for every student. And tonight we're specifically looking at goals one and goal three. So that's reading at our early grades and reading at our middle school grades as well. Uh I am happy to share that not everything is read in tonight's presentation. So as we look at statuses, we are going to see that we are off track with goal one and those GPMs. When we get to goal three, however, all of those three GPMs are showing on track based on where
054we are at the beginning of the year uh according to our targets for this school year. Just to level set where we're going in tonight's presentation and to really provide a summary as we start out, there's a couple things that we have to know about the data itself. Uh and again, we're looking at our map data for beginning of year. And the first is we're going to see that we're starting at a lower point. So when we look at where we were last year at the beginning of the year compared to where we are this year at the beginning of the year, that is consistently lower across the board. Uh I'll explain to you in an upcoming slide a little bit about how that's related to a change in the assessment itself in terms of
055how it's normed and how they're uh you know adjusting the the questions and the algorithm that's used. It's also further indication of why we made the change last spring to bring in high quality instructional materials and a deeper focus on the science of reading. The other thing, the other three pieces here are really all about the work that's underway in our classrooms and on our campuses and what we're doing to try to rapidly improve uh the quality of instruction that students are receiving. And we know that that has to improve and it's got to improve really quickly. And we've got to get to a place where that quality of tier one or ongrade level instruction is really high. Yes, we have new high-quality instruction materials. This is the first year in reading, second year in
056math, but as our teachers are working uh to really get used to and to learn these materials, uh it's still important that we have really great instruction every day for students. Uh part of how we're going to end this evening's presentation is showing you a request that we have later on the agenda to increase support for teachers to improve this instruction. And then the last two pieces on the bottom of the slide here really relate to the work that we're doing with our leaders. So the the quality of instruction is is really on the teacher in the classroom. the way the teacher is being supported to grow and improve and the feedback that they're receiving is on the school leader and the support partners that we have in place. And so the superintendent and I
057and our team have spent a lot of time already this school year in classrooms walking with principles and and campus leaders. And the feedback that teachers are receiving has to become stronger and more actionable. And that's part of why we're spending so much time with campus leaders is to model and coach them through that because it is impossible for a teacher to get better if they don't actually know what they have to do differently and they aren't giving clear guidelines or supports for what that has to look like. So that's a huge focus of our work and that certainly shows up as we look at the data here tonight. And that's just building more and more and deeper capacity in our leaders to understand what good instruction is to know how to lead their their
058teachers and teams through it. And what we're talking a lot about is the work that that requires in changing adult behaviors. It's not just about understanding a new curriculum or knowing your content really well. uh as principles, you got to get teachers to do things differently and that's really hard and difficult work, but that ultimately is our challenge as we try to improve opportunities and outcomes for students. So, quick reminder before we dig in. Uh we shared this with you in our workshop uh before the start of school, but based on the work we did last year and what we learned through these presentations, we really wanted to clarify what it means to say something is on track, off track, or slightly off track. So this is the the parameter that we're using for the
059rest of the school year. So tonight when we show you in the middle school space that things are on track, that means they're at least within two percentage points of where we've got to be at the end of the year. In goal one, when we look at the early grades face and we see that they're off track, that means they're six or more points away from where we need to be at the end of the year. And then slightly off is obviously in between. So here is our splash page with all the statuses for this evening. The top three are all related to that third grade goal of reading on grade level. So again, we're looking at first grade, second grade, and K2 reading fluency. Uh all of those at this point are off track.
060And then in our middle school space, it's sixth, seventh, and eighth grade reading at the STAR equivalent meets plus level. Uh and all three of those are on track. So that's certainly the progression that we want to continue to see uh as we move through the school year. Now the context before we get to the data slides itself. I said there were some changes with the assessment and this is important to frame. Uh and remember when we talk about map we're talking about a norm reference test. Those words simply mean that it's comparing our students against how all other students in the country do on that grade level in that exam. That's how we get our percentiles and comparisons of where students are. And so MAP as an organization and assessment creator like all normed
061assessment creators go through this process called norming where they see okay where is average achievement across the country for this grade level in this content based on all the data that we're getting. It's more than 20 million students who are actually in this data set across the country. More than three million actually in Texas participate uh in MAP. And so in this black or gray curve you see the last set of norms that they did in 2020. coincidentally right before COVID. Uh and this shows you the distribution of achievement based on those norms. So you've got a taller slightly skinnier curve which meant the students were generally more aggregating around the same middle level of performance. We knew that COVID had a big impact. We've seen in national data included uh including NATE data most
062recently that the country continues to show regression and that we're not making up those grounds. And so Matt really had to grapple with that and say we need teachers and educators to truly know where their students are against grade level expectations and those comparisons across the country have to be reset. So they went through a reorming process and we got those uh earlier this fall and that's the pink curve here. Two big things to know. One is it shifted to the left which means that the level of achievement of students across the country is lower consistently than it has been in the past not only in La Hoya but across the entire nation. The other thing is you see this curve got like flatter. It went from being tall and steep to sort of flat
063and wide and that means that we're seeing more variance ultimately in how students are doing across the country. So this is an impact on our data. In two weeks when we talk about ma math data, this will also be true. But just wanted to share this context because even though we are comparing last year to this year for example in in our results and that still is a legitimate comparison, this certainly is a factor in how students um are showing up in their achievement. The last thing I'll say on this point is remember I've showed you a couple of times how Matt works. So, a student takes a a question, they get it right, they move up to a more difficult question, they get it wrong, they move down to a less difficult question. That
064movement up and down used to take the student out of the grade level much faster. So, if I'm a third grade student and I'm getting a lot of questions correct, I can move into fourth, fifth grade, sixth grade level difficulty questions. If I'm getting it wrong, and this is where this really matters, I can move quickly into second and first grade level questions. The other thing that Matt did as they're changing these norms is they keep a student in that grade level for much longer. So even as I'm getting questions right or wrong, that's bouncing within third grade level rigor because they really want teachers to know if that student is on grade level or not and where the skills are to target. And so those two things come together are a backdrop to the
065data that we're going to see in tonight's presentation. And so here's an overview. This is a new table for us in these presentations, but we're um starting to look at the data this way ourselves and wanted to share that with you and the community as well. So just a quick orientation to the table itself. Uh we got all the GPMs we're reviewing tonight. Obviously on the left that red dashed line is our most recent data. So that's this year's beginning of year result. So for example in the first row with first grade 30% of our students this year at the beginning of the year were you know at average performance or the 50th percentile. We're then comparing that to last year's beginning of year result. It is important to remember these are not the same
066students. We're comparing first grade to first grade. So it's not the same population but it is the same grade level. And we see that's a 24 percentage point uh reduction compared to last year. So when I said that we're starting lower, this is where you can see that. And you see that whole column um shows up as as pink. We're also clearly showing how our students in special education did at the beginning of the year. Again, first grade is at 14%. And then that sped delta is not their change over time. It's how far away special education students are from the district overall. So that 16 shows that our special education students came in 16 points lower than the district overall at 30%. Same thing with emergent bilingual. It was 21% and we see that's
067nine points lower than where the district was overall. Uh we also are asking you later tonight to approve an item that sets targets for special ed and emergent bilingual students. This was honestly my error when we reapproved the the GPM targets uh back in August. we should have included those student populations at the time. We didn't, but we are coming back to correct that this evening. Um, that helps us with Lonear governance overall, but it also clarifies what we're trying to achieve not only at the district level, but at these very important student population levels uh as well. And then lastly, and these will become more relevant throughout the year, but where we show you the number of campuses improving and declining, in this case, again, that's compared to where we were last year. later
068updates will actually show if they're improving based on the work happening within this school year. So, let's start uh with goal one again is our third grade goal. We're going to begin though at the early space of that with K2 reading fluency. I think all of you could probably present this slide now because we've done it a lot. Uh but just quick reminder, we are trying to move students from left to right here. We want to get them from not even understanding the letter symbols or sounds to where they can put that together, decode sentences and and passages and get to a place where they have sentence reading fluency and ultimately full reading fluency. Our specific measure here is that sentence fluency box. When we think about the GPM, that's what we're looking to see
069improved. So, we got students past that basic foundational level into the oral reading uh fluency rate. The other thing we wanted to show you, there's lots of wind up in the presentation this evening, uh, but important nonetheless, is actually what's happening with the new highquality instructional materials in reading. Uh, we're still very excited about Blue Bonnet and Amplify, and it certainly is high quality. Uh it is also incredibly challenging and part of that is challenging for the student because it has a high level of rigor and expectation but also a bit challenging for the teacher because if you are a kinder first, second or third grade teacher, you've got to do two things. You've always had to do this but this is part of what the curriculum helps us do a better job at. You've
070got to teach those foundational skills to students. So you see on the left, this is an actual kinder um example where I'm having to learn about the letter N. I need to recognize that and know it's the letter N. I need to know how it sounds. I need to know how it shows up in words. And then on the right where you see the dog and the cat and the circle and the box, I've got to start to understand how that letter shows up in meaning as well in context in words. Uh and that is building those foundational skills for me. Every day there is part of the curriculum that is focused on something just like this skill building and it's called skills. And what we have to do a much better job at is
071make sure teachers are doing that every day. It is the hard grinded out tedious part of the work. And it is the most important because students are not going to get to where we are on the right when we do the the knowledge part or the fun part of the curriculum if they can't build those literacy skills and they can't get to reading comprehension and they don't have that fluency. The other thing we wanted to call out here on the right hand side, uh, and for those of you with with children in the district, I hope that they're coming home excited about what they're doing in their their reading classes because it's certainly different. Um, because we've had students learn about ancient civilizations. We've had them learn about, uh, bones in the ear, plants, uh,
072birds, all sorts of great stuff. Conversations in the classroom are fantastic. And that's a way to bring the students in and get them interested. It is not the point of the reading lesson, though. You're still having to learn how text works, what authors are doing in their writing, how do I make comparison and contrast uh between two authors or two pieces. Like, that's the nitty-gritty work of the reading class. You're getting to do that with really great content, though. And so, part of the challenge that we're seeing this year in the work ahead of us is the teacher can't get lost in the great content. like I really want to talk to you about the Mayan civilization because it's awesome and that's that's really cool, but I still have to do the literacy work as
073part of that lesson. And so we're spending a lot of time with our curriculum partners, with principles, and in turn with teachers helping to make sure that they know what the lesson is actually about and we're ensuring students get there by the end. >> Board President, can I add something? >> Yes, ma'am. So that is the difference that we're attempting to make really clear on the walks with our principles and then subsequently to our educators that you cannot forget that the purpose of the lesson is to teach the standard and you have to teach the standard at what we always call the rigor of the standard. If it is a third grade classroom, you have to teach that standard at the third grade level, right? That's tier one instruction. Every third grader gets taught that
074standard at a third grade level with the text that is being presented within the curriculum. And that text, I keep using the phrase that is the vehicle by which the standard is being taught. But the objective of the day is to make sure that we're learning say author's purpose or that we're learning compare and contrast and that students can then write about it with evidence from the text. Because in order for students to then be able to demonstrate that skill or that standard on an assessment because the assessment won't be about the plants or the assessment won't be about the bones. The assessment will be on the standard and the skill at a third grade level. So we are working with our principles and subsequently our teachers to make sure that they're clear on the
075standard and the objective of the day um and using the content the rich grade level content as the vehicle by which they teach said standard. >> Dr. Little, do you have challenges that you're facing as a result of all of this that you're rolling out? That's a that's a big question. The >> answer is yes. >> Yes. >> So, let's let's be let's be frank about what's going on. I mean, this is fairly new, right? And so, my question to you is uh and I see us I see us visiting the campuses, you know, uh and I I know all the work that you all are putting in. You have an excellent team that's here with us tonight. But what challenges do you have? Is it they're not >> Yeah, I would say there's there's
076certainly a few. So, if we think just about the example on the slide to the skills part on the left, um, and when we look at the data in a second, you're going to see this. Our students do not yet have the foundational skills that they need. That has to be explicitly taught. Like the research is super clear there. We've talked to you all about the science of reading a number of times. This curriculum gives you the tools to do that. It does not do it for you, though. So, the teacher has to really make sure that they understand that lesson. They know exactly how it has to work and what students have to end up being able to do at the end. That's true on skills. That's true on knowledge as well. The way
077we talk about that in our speak is internalization. And so has the teacher really put that lesson into their body and soul like they know it, like they wrote it and they're ready to do that uh with the student at a really high quality level. This part on the left of the slide is the hard work and it's real easy to skip. And so that's the second challenge is we're seeing folks just not make the time in the classroom to do that. That's not acceptable. But that's part of the feedback and the expectation setting that we've got to continue to make clear to principles, but they have to make clear to their teachers. And again, you've we've got curriculum partners. If you'all approve this later tonight, we'll have a bunch more support from those curriculum
078partners to help in that way. The other thing, and and this gets a little into what the superintendent was saying as well on the right, is it's easy for a teacher to get lost in the conversation in this example about plants. This is a kindergarten example. Kindergarteners did not read this passage. It was read to them. That's the readaloud context here. So, the teacher's reading it. Students are digesting this orally. And so, when we get to question number one, how are these plants the same and how are they different? That's not a conversation about plants. That's a conversation about compare and contrast and that's a conversation about like where in the text in this case where in the read aloud did you hear evidence to like help justify your claim. And so each of these
079questions actually has a literacy standard behind it that they're trying to teach. And we're seeing far too many classrooms where that's not being the explicit focus of the classroom. We're just getting lost in like the discussion. That's what we're working to change super quickly because that's ultimately what students have to carry with them into first grade, second grade, and on and on. >> And so what I would build on that um board president is that that's why we have our lesson structure because the explicit instruction around said standard. So again, just using the first one as an example here, compare and contrast. You have to walk children through multiple examples. You're you have to teach it first and walking kids through. Okay, so we just did this. So, let me walk you through a couple
080of examples of how they're the same and how they're different before you then release them to do that on their own. And so that level of explicit instruction where the teacher is teaching said skill, teaching it to children before we give them independent practice or interactive practice is a part that we are seeing across the district that isn't um at the place where we need it to be yet. Um, which is why the feedback from our principles to our teachers to get better, stronger, faster on that is really important. And I I want to add that our teachers are asking for the feedback. Our teachers want to get better at this. Again, they're working very hard. And so, we want to make sure that they're working hard on the right things so that our students
081reap the benefits of that explicit instruction. And so that we can assess at the end of the lesson with our demonstration of knowledge at the end of the lesson their demonstration of learning that they've actually learned said skill so that during that tier 2 time or when inquest in our middle schools were able to do that second teach. >> Thank you Dr. Sornson. Dr. L may proceed. >> Thank you. >> Yes. So here is the look at our K2 uh fluency data. A little orientation to the slide. Top left um our traditional line chart. In this case we're looking at last year's beginning of year and end of year data. So we went from 31 to 40 last school year. This year we are coming in at 20. Again part of that is norm change.
082Part of that is adjustment to the curriculum. Part of that is also just the work that we have to do uh to build this knowledge and skill level in our students. And then our target this year is 44. So we got a ways to go. It is possible for us to get there with intentionality and like deep support. Uh but that is certainly a gap between where we are and where we we have to end up. On the right, we've always included this um how our all students, special education, emerging bilingual students are doing. Um but again clarifying those targets in that table. Uh, and if you approve those tonight, this is the targets that they're based on that we would want to end up at the end of the year for each of those
083populations as well. And then at the bottom is where we continue to see how our campuses are doing. This is going to get better as I go through the rest of the slides, but in this case, none of our campuses are at that target level yet. Everyone's below that 44. Again, these are always organized from highest achieving on the left to lowest achieving on the right. We are calling out our ACE campuses, Garza and Sigin, as well as our superintendent constraint campus, in this case, Pena. Um, so as we promised, we'll continue to be super transparent about how they're doing. You do see in this data point that Pina and Garza are like middle to the left. That is the right progression for those campuses. Sagine, however, is hanging out all the way over there
084on the right. And that's rapid improvement that we've got to see as we go through the year because as an ACE campus, again, part of that commitment is to go from F toC this school year. You can't stay as one of the lowest performing campuses if we're going to hit that target. Um, so again, this is beginning of year data, but as I show you the next couple of slides, you'll see that that trend typically holds. And that's part of the urgent work that we're doing with that principal and that team at that school is to to make those quick corrections. So, as I mentioned, this one will look a little bit better at the campus level, but starting at the top left, you see last year we actually decreased over time. We went from
08554 to 36. Um, last year with first grade, we're starting this year at 30. Our target is 37. So, certainly um less gap to close here than in the K2 fluency space. But what we have to avoid is the same thing we did last year where this got worse over time. It's got to improve for us to hit that target. That's also our commitment to you and the community with the work that we're doing in campuses to show that growth. We do have some campuses already above that target. So, first grade overall look stronger. Um, you see that we've got uh I think it's six campuses currently above that 37 target for the district. One of those being Garza. Um, so again, early sign moving in the right direction. In this case, Pena slid down
086the the um slide and SEIN is still there on the right. So again, these are calls to action that we've already begun working on with those campuses uh to make improvement. And then second grade, similar to first, we're coming in at 33 this year. Our target is 40. Again, we have some campuses who are already above that 40 mark. Uh and we see our two A schools and superintendent constraint school as well. Similar picture to first grade overall. Now, this is not our GPM, but third grade is our goal. Third grade is actually measured on star at the goal level, but we did want to show you where we are based on MAP. Um, this came in significantly lower than where we were last year. We've changed from the 50th percentile or higher because we're
087in third grade now. We're actually looking at that star equivalent meets level, which is 14%. Uh, you see our target is 43. So, a significant amount of work uh to be done here. None of the schools are at or above that target yet. You actually see all three of our ACE and constraint schools. Uh to the to the right of this slide, this is data that we've been talking about and sharing with our principles. We've actually made that a consistent practice this year where we are bringing data to every principal's meeting uh to reflect on this and think both what do they need to be doing in their campus as well as what do we need to be doing at the central office level. And I'll show you one of those things at the end.
088So, quick change here. We're going to the middle school space. We'll go through this fairly quickly because all three look pretty much the same. Uh, and again, all three of these are on track. So, we're within two points of the end of year target, sixth grade. We're actually a little above where we think we'll be at the end of the year. So, we're at 36 and we got to at least get to 34. Um, you see half of our campuses are above that right now and half below it. And we are calling out our constraint school at the middle school level, which is Dr. signs uh which is your third from the right here. Very similar picture here in seventh grade. We're at 34. We need to at least be at 33. And you will
089notice that at the middle school level, the distribution of the campuses really doesn't change whether we're looking at sixth, seventh, or eighth grade. Those on the left are always on the left. Those on the right are always on the right. That generally matches what we're seeing in those campuses as well and is part of that work that we're doing with those principles. obviously, but there's a lot of consistency here at the middle school space. 8th grade being the strongest starting at 43. Target U was 36. Uh we certainly don't plan to go down, but are very happy with that 43, but have to do the work to keep it. And again, you see where our schools are, which matches um really the other grade levels as well. So what we're doing in response to this
090data uh I said one of the things that we're doing centrally is really uh around how we're helping teachers improve that internalization to your question earlier president Alvarez. So, we've actually launched, this is the first week that they're live in classrooms, uh, something called instructional planning calendars. You may hear us refer to those as IPC's. Um, but that essentially is taking the lesson that the teacher has to teach. Us going through that lesson and really providing additional strategies, supports, and annotations to say, "You should do this this way, and it should take this much time. You can cut this part out. Here's what students really have to know at the end of this lesson." and here's the questions that you're going to ask them at the end to see if they mastered that skill or
091concept. That's what we call the demonstration of learning. So, this is really doing all of the pre-work that teachers would have had to do. We're doing that for them so that they can really focus on practicing that lesson and making sure it's really high quality when they're in in the classroom with students for the first time. We launched these last week, did some orientation to them. teachers actually have them to use in classrooms right now this week and those will continue to roll out for the the rest of the school year. And these are happening from kindergarten all the way up through our our tested content areas in high school. Other thing that's coming actually next week is our spot checks. That's where all of executive leadership team goes out across the district. We'll do
092this five times a year and we're doing observations at every campus to really understand trends and patterns across instruction. Uh these spot checks do factor into our principal's evaluation this year as part part of the principal excellence initiative. Uh so they they are a bit high stakes for the principal. Um they are not for the teacher however. Uh we are not sharing teacher level data back with the school. We're looking again at trends and patterns. But uh really excited about one what we're going to learn because this really drives our continuous improvement actions but also really helping to see where there are consistent needs and consistent celebrations across the district. And then uh later again in the agenda we're asking for some more support uh for our teachers and leaders from our curriculum providers. I'll
093show you a slide on that in a second. And then the superintendent mentioned the do tracking. That's the assessment at the end of the lesson. Again, it could be two questions or so to see if students mastered that concept. We're now providing those for every lesson for every teacher. So, they don't have to decide what it is. We're giving it to them to say, "Here is the grade level expectation for that lesson." And then what they have to do is do that with the student and then really track mastery and respond to it when students are not mastering that content. And then we share with you in the last presentation uh how we're doing unit assessments this year. We are monitoring those on a consistent basis. Uh turning around data within a couple of days
094of those being completed and sharing that back with principles so we can reflect on that progress over time through the school year as well. Uh with the IPC's uh just a slide here to to show you what those are. I really described this already. Uh but again it is a direct investment in not only building capacity of our teachers but really lessening their burden so that they can really emphasize their time on getting really great at what that explicit instruction is and rehearsing that and practicing it in their PLC time on campus. >> Board President, may I >> Yes, Dr. Sorenson. >> So I you asked earlier, so what what's the pain point, right? Where where do we still need to grow? And so I always feel like it's an opportunity for us to say
095the quiet parts out loud. And so we've created this scaffold of the instructional planning calendars um because we heard loudly and clearly that the internalization was um hard work and um I am never going to shy away from that teaching children how to read or teaching them how to do math. It is hard work and it should be hard work because at the end of all of that we've got to make sure that our children can walk across the stage after 12th grade with options and opportunities. So the work of educating young people is hard. That being said, we want to make sure that we're supporting our teachers as fast as we can so that our children aren't losing time in between, right? So, what scaffolds do we need to to put in place in
096order to support our teachers as they learn a new curriculum? And so, we've put these IPCs in place in order to provide the scaffold for highquality instructional materials. And again, I want to unpack for the community what high-quality instructional materials do. They provide the text. They provide the task. They provide the questions. They provide the assessment. They provide guidance on instructional strategies. So the teacher has to focus on how to deliver that lesson. They don't have to focus on finding the article, finding the text, writing the questions, all of that. HQIM does that so that the focus becomes on instructional delivery. We were still hearing that that was a lot for our teachers to do. So we've created this scaffold where now we are actually going through the curriculum and highlighting here's the standard here's
097here's the scaffold here's the question focus here spend this much time here here is where the explicit instruction must be like we have gone into the curriculum and annotated it to provide that focus for our educators so that they weren't having to read as and help them unpack it quicker. But I am going to say this publicly as the superintendent. At some point, our teachers are still going to have to internalize the lesson and figure out what is the very best way to do grade level instruction with the materials that we have. That is going to be the standard of excellence that we require here in La Hoya ISD because that is what our children deserve. If we want our children to again meet grade level standards or exceed them, then that is the type
098of instruction that is required and it is hard work. and we are here to support you and we want to do that shoulder partner work with you which is why we've created this scaffold. And at the end of that we are still going to have to internalize the lesson and really focus on grade instruction and instructional delivery around grade level standards. I had a meeting the other night with our educator advisory committee which is a group of educators from across the district and I had this conversation with them really helped them understand the why behind it and they were like thank you that provides a lot of clarity and a lot of guidance and so I really wanted to take the time here to say we're here to do the shoulder-to-shoulder work with you we've
099provided a scaffold we've even created the demonstration of learning for you. We've linked slide decks for you. There still is a point at which the educator has to internalize those materials and bring them alive in the classroom for the very children that they are responsible for improving student outcomes for. And so, as the superintendent of the district, I can't be apologetic about that. And that is not something that we can shy away from if we are focused on students meeting or exceeding grade level standards and having them be prepared for college career and life. >> Thank you Dr. Sornson. Before we proceed, I know Dr. Ch I mean our vice president, Miss Chavez, did you have any questions for Dr. Little? >> Uh yes, Dr. I had a question um pertaining towards the the curriculum
100partners gets approved. um how does how do we ensure that all this support is being implemented properly? How are we going to go um and then when it's going to start? When would this potentially start? And then who will and how often will they we be checking to make sure that the support is being utilized properly? Especially since it's such a large ticket item. You know, what checks and balances would be in place for that? >> Yeah, completely fair and good question and that's something that we think about uh and work on a lot. So, two things I want to clarify. one is this is additional support coming into the campuses. We're already working with each of these partners to provide a base level of support. So this is more on top of what's already
101there. Um so in terms of how we ensure that it actually is implemented and turned around. One of the things that we do is each of these partners actually provides uh feedback and reports to us to say here's what we're working on, here's what folks are doing and here's where we're seeing challenges. So that's just a general expectation for each of them. Um the other is as we are in classrooms and campuses directly, we're looking for that growth and improvement as well. So like if the soup and I are both walking with principles, that's one of the things we're talking about and holding them accountable to be able to explain and do in turn. and then the entire um sort of team whether that's the uh executive director of school leadership who's the supervisor of
102the principal or or one of our other team members who's really there to support in that content and make sure that it's getting better. That's part of what those uh feedback loops look like with the principal as well. Um, the other thing I would say to the spot checks that we're going to be doing, that's going to give us real clarity across the district and where things are working well and where they aren't. And we know what's been provided by these partners. So, that gives us even another opportunity to reinforce like, hey, you've gotten four weeks of coaching on this. We just did all these spot checks and we're not seeing it. What has to change right now based on that? >> And Vice President Chavez, I would also say the other part that um,
103Dr. Dr. Little didn't say is that um we meet with the partners every two weeks. Um I personally am on the call. Um it is not just Dr. Little and the team. It isn't just Brenda, you know, with the math partners. I am personally on these calls and we are giving direct feedback to these partners to say I was on said campus today and here is what I saw today. I know you were on that campus last week. I need to see rapid improvement on that campus. We approve their agendas before they do professional development down to their slides. And so when we use our theory of action as managed instruction, that means that we are also managing our partners, right? Um I say this all the time, the team knows this. Like we are
104the customer, right? as you can see like if you approve this like we take that we are the customer and we expect quality service very seriously. Um and so both Dr. Little and I as well as the executive director of said content and the execut directors of school leadership are on calls with them every other week. >> Absolutely. >> Members of the board, do we have any additional questions for Dr. Little? >> Okay, >> I believe that's it, Mr. President. Yeah, >> I I do have a question. Um, Dr. L, when we think about the current outcomes, right, for third grade versus 8th grade in what you guys are currently doing thus far, are you seeing any fundamental differences with what could be impacting for our eighth grade students to be on track versus our
105third grade students being off track? >> Yeah, I think there's two things. One, both have new curriculum. So, like that's a standard uh factor in both cases. So, it's not just like, hey, we have this at the elementary and not at the the middle school level. Um, part of it I I want to go back to one of these slides actually. So, if we look at seventh grade, for example, coming in at 34%. That is on track, but it's also on track because we factored in in the GPM change like where we were last year and anticipating a learning curve with the curriculum. So, very happy that it's green. That's certainly what we want to see. but also not just sitting and celebrating, hey, that's where it needs to be. So, when we talk about
106the instructional changes that have to occur, those are fairly consistent actually across elementary and middle school. The conversation we have with a middle school principal and the conversation we have with an elementary school principal sounds almost the same because we're seeing teachers struggle with things differently. So part of this, and I made this comment, I think at some point last year, like middle schoolers and certainly high schoolers have found some way to compensate sometimes for reading, certainly for reading comprehension. Um, younger students do not have that ability yet. They haven't built that over time. So we get a more raw sense of where they actually are uh in their skills. Um, but not taking away from the fact that we have three on tracks because we've never had that in a presentation before. It really
107doesn't change the urgency in the work that we're doing middle versus elementary because it has to dramatically improve across the board. >> I think the other part board member Pñena that I would say is that um there is also a difference um not dramatically but we are starting to see it um difference in leaders. Yeah. >> Um we just went through a um fivehour data accountability um morning turned into afternoon um where we pulled in our quartortile 4 and quartortile 3 principles to talk about their first 10 weeks of data. Um there's a protocol and a process by which they you know go before us their peers. Um and there is a clear difference um right now in principles who are accelerating their growth and accelerating their learning and those who are still sitting in
108a space around well I don't want to hurt people's feelings I don't want to say you know what's really happening and or aren't in the classrooms enough and so again I think that it is very important for us to be transparent when we're sitting up here at DAS or presenting at the podium what our expectations are. Strategic priority number one in our district is excellence and leadership and that starts with being instructional leaders. And so we're being very clear with our principles around what our expectation is of them. Um I say it all the time, three things that we expect principles to know and be able to do. We expect them to be able to identify problems, find solutions to said problems, and change adult behavior. That means that they have to grow their teachers
109and again in partnership, right? We've got to be willing to get in the classroom and work with our educators to do the very best work. But you can't do that if you're not in the classrooms. You can't do that if you're unwilling to actually have a coaching conversation. And so Dr. Dr. Little and I are really meeting with our principles, walking with our principles, modeling for our principles what this looks like because they are actually the ones who have to do that day in and day out work. And so, um, to answer your question, we're seeing growth in some quicker than others. >> Thank you, Dr. Sorson. Any questions? Yes, ma'am. >> I do have a question. So I see we have interventions in terms of leadership while we're focusing on the lesson plans and
110setting the curriculum up for the teachers. But what other interventions do we have at the classroom level? >> Yeah. So what we didn't talk at all about tonight is let me change the way I'm going to say that. Tonight's presentation is all about what we call tier one or on grade level instruction and expectations for students. That's you know where students are learning new things. That's the meat of what they're doing every day in the classroom. That's the hard work where they walk out like feeling tired and like, "Hey, I accomplished something at the end of it." The other things that we still have in place are what happens in tier 2 or intervention time. So, we shared with you data last year. We'll have an upcoming presentation later in the calendar on how Lexia
111since we're talking about reading like how teachers are using that, how students are progressing, how they're growing uh in that data. And when we talked to you last year, we said we really had to better emphasize this year is not just time on the device, it's intentional quality time with the tool and it's small group time with the teacher. So we adjusted all of our protocols and guidance and and things and are working through with with principles to make sure that that's being done in classrooms with students as well. On the emerging bilingual side, we also have additional resources there. Estraittita is one of them. you know, things that teachers can use to make sure students are getting additional interventions, whether that's in Spanish or English to support their growth as well. So, there's still
112a whole toolbox of things. We really focused on the main tier one on grade level point because that's what this data is really about. >> Appreciate it. Thank you for that. >> And I also want to add um Dr. L, if you could go back one slide to this. Um and so when we talk about developing the capacity of our principles, I do want to note that um what you'll see in the additional supports if the board um approves this is that you'll see the word coaching in here quite a bit. And these aren't pull out you have to go on Saturday kind of supports for teachers. These are coaching days on campus in the classroom shoulder-to-shoulder in professional learning communities so that teachers are getting that job embedded professional development that research says works
113best. And so again, you're seeing custom coaching supports, right? you're seeing flex coaching days like where more campuses might need support increasing by 113 coaching days. And so when we talked last year about building a culture of coaching um you meant that and so you'll see that for us it really is about building those supports um so that our teachers can feel supported as well as they grow and know the content both in tier one and also providing those supports in tier two and tier three time. Thank you, Dr. Sorenson. Um, any further questions for Dr. Little? >> Dr. Little, thank you. And I look forward to um a followup on this presentation. So, thank you for that. >> Thank you, Mr. President. >> You're welcome. Next on the agenda is our Lonear governance time
114use tracker by uh our chief of staff, Joseph. >> Yes, sir. Good. Good evening, Mr. Board President, school board, Dr. Sornson. I'm happy to bring you our Lonear governance time tracker report for our September 24th, 2025 meeting. Um, of course, our our Lonear tracker report comes out of our Lone Lonear governance work. Um, and in that work, um, the the school district administration and the school board work in partnership in a continuous improvement model, laser focused on improving student outcomes. So for our September 24th meeting, I am uh pleased to report um that we had spent we we spent 79.63% of our board meeting time um on student outcomes and adult behaviors and 77.78% of that time specifically on student minutes. So, I'll remind the board and the public that what we shoot for our
115goal or target for each meeting um is over 50% of our time um and this marks the third meeting in a row uh where we've been over 70% of our time on student um spent on student outcome minutes. >> So, another excellent report. >> Um obviously I'm very happy about that, but does anybody have any questions? This is kind of one of my favorite parts. And sometimes I I dread this agenda item, but >> I enjoy having the big reveal. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I'm always thinking, is Joseph going to give us good news or bad news? This is good and this is important. As I've stressed before, it's important for us to remember why we're here, right? And it's all about the student outcomes and and Diana, Dr. Bara does a really good job
116of of of um you know, of reminding us the value of that. and and it went along with the training that we we experienced for over a year on how important it was to establish and to make sure that our focus was going to be student outcome. So, thank you, Joseph. >> Appreciate it. >> Good report. So, no questions for Joseph. Seeing that there's none, we'll go ahead and move on to the next agenda item. And I want to say it's going to be with Dr. Baretta. Dr. Betta is going to talk to us about um our Texas Education Agency Conservative Report, TA Conservatives Report by Dr. Barela 8.1. >> Well, first I'll be doing um item 7.3. >> That's correct. 7.3. I apologize for that. 7.3. Go ahead. So the board gets reports on
117goals, progress of goals and in um student achievement and we have to measure are we making progress or not. The board also approved and identified certain constraints um for the superintendent and for themselves to make sure that they stay on track. And when I say they, it's it's all of you. Um, and so for today, we're going to be reviewing board constraint number two. And that one is board members shall not communicate in a way that goes or appears to go against any board and board action. Any board member and board action. So that's the constraint that we have to look at and you have to assess whether or not um you're doing your job. um to make sure that we keep that constraint um that we meet that constraint. Right? So there's a individual
118reflection for you. I want you to think about these questions as you think about your role as a board member. Think about things that you say in public. Have I made any statements that could be perceived as contradicting board decisions? and public could even be to your aunt, to your mom, to your person at at uh HB, right? It's whenever you leave this boardroom, the expectation is that the statements that you make about the work going on here is reflective of the work of the entire board. So if there's something that's approved by the entire board, then what you're communicating should be reflective of that. And so we've talked about that um across the two years that we've been together. Social media, right? Have I posted or shared content that undermines board unity? Again, we've
119had conversations about this. We see it on social media across the valley, right? um things that are constantly shared that are partly true and and really are confusing and do not help us in communicating the message that La Hoya is um on the road to making significant improvements. Community engagement. Have I redirected concerns appropriately or unintentionally fueled dissent? Right. So whenever a community calls you with with an issue, if you engage in conversation about this issue and oh and I agree and I don't like that and things are, you know, it's that's not that's not what your role is. Your role is to communicate what's actually happening in the district. And if there's any questions about anything that's happening, you might have a little information about it, but you don't have all the information. So,
120we've talked the very best thing to do is to refer back to a staff member who does have um all of the facts in their entirety. Um you guys do a lot of preparation. I recognize that you read a lot of the material. We have board prep. I understand that. So, you have a lot of knowledge. you're building your knowledge base about the district, but you still don't have all the information needed to probably answer that question. So, we've had those discussions as well. So, on the next page is the actual self-evaluation. So, I want you I'm going to give you just a few minutes to rate yourselves in those areas and then we're going to get ratings for the entire group. So we can say alto together are we a a one a two
121three four five in that area and this will be how we evaluate whether or not uh we're meeting this constraint. So read all those descriptions read the indicators and rate for yourself. So explain to me what one would be. Is that strongly agree or or is that >> Oh, right. The I'm so sorry. The one is um No, it's not happening. >> Okay. >> I disagree. >> And the five is strongly agree. >> Yes. I apologize. >> That's okay. >> Give us an answer. So, this is for each of you. >> Are we supposed to say this out loud or I mean I >> the the community definitely deserves to know. This is a constraint you set for yourself. >> So, you're not going to tell us your score all together. You're going to come
122up with a consensus all together for unity and communication. >> Where do you think we are? I think we're pretty consistent across the board. >> So do I. >> Consistent. Strongly agree. Do you feel like you're in alignment with board decisions that you're consistently communicating in alignment? So, >> well, >> do I hear a four or do I hear a five? >> Five. >> Oh, yeah. I would say five. >> So, raise your hand if you're if you feel like it's a five at the level five. Mhm. >> Okay. Okay. So, that's that's fair. >> I just want to note I'm not raising my hand for any reason except I'm not the board member. >> Correct. >> I just wanted to be clear. So, no one took it any other way. >> No. Correct. >>
123No, I don't I'm not voting. >> And and again, I want to be clear on this constraint as well. This is not necessarily that these things were happening. It could have there could have been instances with this board and there could have been instances with the previous board and past boards. So the purpose of doing this is to also inform and educate the community into um how you are a high performing board having these expectations for yourself, right? Just like you expect your superintendent to self- evvaluate to reflect and self-evaluate and she expects the same for from her team. The community expects that from you as well. So, how about respect for board actions? I avoid public or private criticism of board decisions. Where do we think we are on this one? >> Yes, Miss
124Tavis, where do you think >> I was giving you a five? >> Oh, a five. Oh, okay. I thought you were raising your hand. A five. Is there anybody that disagrees with the five? I I would agree with that. Thank you. Clarity of role. I refrain from giving personnel directives or opinions that conflict with board actions. And we know this is a problem for many boards across the Rio Grand Valley, across the state of Texas, across the United States, right? It's you have one voice here and then or they have one voice in here and they go somewhere else and they're saying it you know singing another tune completely and again whenever board members behave in that manner they are not a high performing board right if the community sees board members doing that then
125it's going to be okay for for them to do that in schools so five anybody who doesn't believe that it should be a five >> I think needs a five. >> I do. >> Okay. And the last one is community trust. I help build trust in the board by reinforcing its collective decisions. And again, there's there's some times where there's discussion in executive session and as it should be. That's that's the whole point, right? And then you come out here and you take the vote, the official vote. doesn't mean that there were not any dissenting opinions back there, but the important thing that counts. What's on the record is the actual vote. So, how about community trust? Are you thinking that it's a five or is there anyone that believes it's anything other than a
126five? >> Five. Five. >> Five. Okay. >> So, so you rated yourselves consistently a five overall. And I've been known to push other boards on their rating, but I I don't have any reason to push you with the I agree with these. I definitely agree with these. And I know that it's not always easy, right? Everybody has different opinions, but as long as you leave this boardroom and know this was the vote, this is what we said, this is what we decided. Um, and I think that would that's what your community expects from you. And as your coach, I expect that from you so that you can be and continue to be the high performing board um that you've been up until now because remember, you're setting the the standard for the new board members
127that are going to eventually come back. This is LSG is not going to go away. These are standards for boards across Texas. And so I I thank you for doing the hard work of really engaging in in this work to prepare for meetings and then also to engage during the meetings. So are there any questions on this >> members of the board? >> So Dr. B, I just have one question and maybe it's an observation but or maybe just a comment. I mean I appreciate you bringing this to our attention, right? It's it's always good to do self-reflection, right? you know to evaluate ourselves and I think I think after every board meeting when I leave here at least I always think I mean did we you know were the right decisions and of course
128there's a lot of work in preparation for the meetings that we attend it's not just coming over here and making these decisions many of us with the materials that are given to us and the time that we're spent it's like another job right people have even asked me hey do you get paid to do that right but what I do is what's that yeah the answer is very the answer is very So yeah, I want to make that clear. I don't get paid to do this. But what I do want to share with you is I think it's important for us to share this with even staff. I mean, if I was a member of the staff, I mean, am I am I a good reflection of the school? Because when I when I walk
129or when I spend time outside of this area, I always think that I represent this fine institution or this fine school district, right? And then especially the students, you know, I mean, just everywhere I go and I see the students or I hear that somebody graduated from here, I'm glad I'm very proud of the students that have come out of La Hoya and and to hear the success stories of many of them. But but I think sometimes we have to I I I use this even in my personal life. I mean, am I a good reflection of where I work? I mean, do I do I you know, do I support the the the you know, the the entity that I represent? So, this is really good. I appreciate you bringing this to our attention
130and allowing us to use this as an exercise. >> I also want to say that I've had individual board members contact me over the two years. Is this okay? Can I do this? Can I say this? Is this >> am I overstepping? And that's awesome because that means you care about your role and you don't want to go beyond your role, right? >> So I really appreciate that um as well. >> Well, thank you. >> Any questions? Anybody >> members of the board? Thank you for the >> I have a comment. >> Yes. >> Um earlier I I heard you mention something about entire like the whole board entirely um when we make a decision, but I want to specify how even if at any point one of us votes against majority um I feel
131you know we're not going to be holding grudges um because somebody didn't vote accordingly but you know they didn't think it was um possible. So, like you said, we are a united board and uh that's how we come out here and have voted how we have voted, but um ultimately we're going to respect the majority um vote of the board because that's what is going to happen in the district and we have very fine individuals up here. Um that's why majority is going to be what what has to happen. >> Thank Thank you for clarification. And yes, you're not always going to agree. there's going to be some things that you just you just can't uh agree with. And so you have to you have to vote um vote your conscience, right? I'm going to
132say vote your conscience instead of period, and you also are an appointed board. That's very different than an elected board. an an appointed board is here. You are here at the um discretion of and at the will of the commissioner of education. And the reason you are here is so that you can learn and display effective board behaviors again so that you can teach your community what a good solid board is and does. And I also want to say when there's boards that leave on a regular basis, not in agreement, 4, three, split votes on a lot of things, that's when you know that there's issues, right? I'm not trying to say that you can't vote against but when there's a consistent uh four three split votes on multiple things that means the work is
133not getting done right and so we have to go back to our training on superintendent role and board role right you you have your superintendent you've extended her contract because you trust her and you believe that the information that she's sharing with you and recommending to you for approval is uh consistent with the goals with all the district priorities uh and with your expectations. Right? So I want to make that clarification as well. While while it's not expected that there's a 70 vote all the time, when you see a consistent 70 uh record, you say, "Wow, that board is really um working together and they do have one voice." So, I wanted to make that clarification, but thank you for your comment. >> Thank you, Dr. Anundis. >> Thank you, Dr. So, you have agenda
134item eight as well, monthly TA conservatives report. >> Yes. I want to call your attention again to the the top part, the one that has the red um and again I just did this to make it easier to read. I know the other text is very small. So on exit criteria one um we didn't have any change on how many activities were completed on track or not yet started. We are finalizing board operating procedures and we will be bringing that to you in November. Um so that's progress that we've made with that exit criteria. With the second exit criteria, we did have some movement. Uh last month I told you that there were no activities completed in those uh GPMs. Now we have four that we actually completed. So we're making progress with those audit
135recommendations for business and finance on track. Now we have 20 uh one 21. So that went down because they're moving from uh on track to completed and then the not yet started went from six to three and again that's in the direction that we wanted to go. Um so we are working diligently or the team is working diligently to implement all of these um uh all of all of the recommendations from the audit. The last one which is um the academic exit criteria making sure that all all um campuses in the district are rated in overall A to C in the state accountability system. We actually completed six more activities this month. Last month we only had six complete. Now we had 12 uh on track. Instead of 19 now we have 15. and not
136yet started. We have 53 rather than 55. There are a lot of different things, a lot of moving parts with academics. Um, and I can tell you that I spent today, this morning, um, with the secondary principles and with Dr. Sorenson and Dr. Little and the team and I was able to see what was happening on campuses. I was able to see the data that that they were sharing. Um, and I saw some consistencies and I saw some inconsistencies. But I will tell you that the work that needs to be done at La Hoya ISD is being done. It's not easy work. And it's not easy because you don't see those improvements right away. But the improvements will come when there's consistent implementation, right? When there's consistent uh instruction. Um and so I'll be working
137with with the team to make sure that um those things are happening and that we're really doing our due diligence to track um student achievement so that we can improve student outcomes for all students. You heard and you saw the data. The most alarming are the two student groups, special ed and uh emergent bilingual groups. We we are not seeing the progress with those two groups that we need to see. So I will say that in with those two areas in particular, that's where we really have to get serious and we have to see consistent urgent action. Um but I and I will say I do believe that we are going to see the progress. It's the beginning of the year. I you know I was telling uh another individual. So the good news is
138or I think I said this earlier today. The good news is um it's October and we still have time right to course correct. The bad news is it's already October 22nd. we have lost all of this time and we cannot get back. >> So we have to make every moment count. Um and so that's the progress on exit criteria one, two, and three. Does anybody have questions for me? >> Members of the board, any questions? >> Can I add something? Yes, board president. So I also want to add um just giving context a little bit though to the not yet started. There are some things like if you don't see the whole report right in its entirety um some shouldn't have started yet. >> Correct. >> So again to the public and to you know
139the eyes who may not be looking at you know the fine print um we absolutely as a district can't start everything at the same time. Um if we're going to get good and then great at some things. Um you'll also notice the number of exit criteria um that we're being held to and we absolutely should be held to the highest standard and that means that we've got to get some things right first. And so those numbers may not always move as as quickly as folks may believe that they should and they shouldn't move quickly if we're not ready to do that work yet because we're focused on moving the needle on the right work first. So just wanted to keep all that in context and that's not just for exit criteria three >> that's for
140you know two as well. I mean, Meredette is going methodically through um things. So, just really wanted to also keep that in context. But, Dr. uh Betta, I really appreciate you bringing up our focus on special education and emerging bilingual students. Um that did not go unnoticed today um in our conversations, not only with our principles, but internally afterwards. Um but also in Dr. Little's presentation. Um, I really want to commend um I'm going to look at Deputy Chief um Kendallio who has really kind of taken special education um under her wing in a way that is assertive. Um but it is a population that she is um really passionate about as we all are. but just recently has sent a team out to kind of do an internal kind of spot check of her
141own in terms of where are we in terms of um accommodations and modifications just being met in tier one instruction. And so those are the kinds of decisive actions that I want to see from my team as we recognize the data isn't where it needs to be. And so I really thank you for doing that. Um, it shows a dis like definitive and decisive action to move the needle to make sure that kids are getting those accommodations and modifications that are legally required in tier one instruction and also in resource and every setting that we have across the district. So, thank you very much for that. Um, and we're going to keep um a laser-like focus on what's happening with our emerging bilingual students because that is our population also one and the same. >>
142Absolutely. And a note on the on the timeline, if you look at the pro monthly progress portion of the actual report, there's a start date and a projected end date. Many of those dates are in 2026 to 2027. So, and those are on purpose when when the team decided on the activities, what work needed to be done, like Dr. Sorenson said, we can't do it all at one time, right? What's the most urgent? what what can we do first? What do we need to do first to build the you know what foundation do we need to build on? And so, thank you for bringing that up, Dr. Sorenson. It it does sound uh it doesn't sound as um I don't like the sound of 55 not yet started. >> Well, out of context, it sounds
143a little crazy. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yes. Any other questions? >> Any questions for Dr. Ma? Thank you, Dr. Bar. >> Thank you again and thank you again for the visit today. Ladies and gentlemen, next item on the agenda is agenda item number nine, which is our consent agenda item. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve the consent agenda. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Item number 10 is our closed meeting. Um, the time right now is 7:54 p.m. We will be going into a close session under section Texas Government Code section 551.001, 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, 551.076, 551.129, and 551.0821 0821 concerning and any all purposes permitted by the act including but not limited
144to the sections and purposes listed below. We are now in close session and again it is 7:54 Have you ever atmosphere Okay, we are back from close session and it is 8:59 p.m. Next item on the agenda is agenda item number 12, approval of Carnegie professional learning and coaching support. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 12.1. >> 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 12.2. Approval of great minds as the core curriculum for grades K through 12. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve item 12.2. Do >> I have a second? >> I second. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I.
145>> All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 12.3 approval of teaching lab professional learning for K through five blue bonnet literacy support services. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve item 12 12.3. >> Do I have a second? >> I second. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. >> Uh next item on the agenda. Let me see. Um yeah is agenda item 12.4. teaching labs. >> Okay, here it is. Yes, approval of teaching labs professional learning for K through five. Believe me, did I already say that one? >> School. >> Okay, I am page. >> 12.4 is approval of teaching lab professional learning for K through 5 lb literacy support services. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve.
146>> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Next item is 12.5 approval of custodial supplies equipment and services bid 2025-73. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve. >> 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 4.6 Six. Approval of La Hoya ISD's district-wide scoreboard and video display systems CSP number 2026-18. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve. >> Do I have a second? >> I second. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Ladies and gentlemen, next item on the agenda is
14712.7. On this particular agenda item, there will be no action will be taken on this item at this time and will be uh brought back at a future time. Next item on the agenda is 12.8, approval of board resolution 2025-12, Texas Education Human Resource Day. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve item 12.8. >> Do I have a second? >> I second. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. >> All oppose. Motion carries. Next item is 12.9 considering take possible action to propose the termination of chapter 21 term contract employee and authorize the superintendent to send notice of proposed termination to employees. Do I have a motion? >> Move to approve. >> All uh do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify
148by saying I. >> I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 12.10 10 consider and take possible action to terminate a chapter 21 term contract employee. Do I have a motion? >> I move to approve item 12.10. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. >> I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item is agenda item 13 which is our calendar. October 2025 bullying prevention month, breast cancer awareness month. We encourage everyone to wear pink on Tuesdays. Dyslexia Awareness Month, National Principles Month. Next item on the agenda is 13.2 October 2nd, 2025 custodial appreciation day. October 5th, 2025, World Teachers Day. October 7th, 2025, World Day of Bullying Prevention. We encourage everyone to wear orange. October 8, 2025, regular board meeting. This
149one has been cancelled. Of course, we all experienced that. October 10th, 2025 was a World Mental Health Day. October 14 through the 18, 2025, World Mental Health Day. October 16, 2025 was World Unity Day. October 16 through the 20th, National School Lunch Week. October 16 through the 20th, America Safe School Week. October 18, 2025, Breast Cancer Awareness Community Walk. October 21st through the 25th is is red whit red ribbon week. October 25th, 2025 wellness kickball tournament will be held. October 27th of this month, World Occupational Therapy Day. October 28th of this month, Halloween trunk trip uh trunk or tree, a night of literacy magic, Pack Stadium, Alfredo Selena Street. November 20 no third November is of this month of next month is anti- vaping awareness month. Next month is na native American Heritage Month. November
1502025 of this year is diabetes awareness month. November 1st of 2025 National Family Literacy Day. November 5th of 2025 will be regular school board meeting which will be our next one our next meeting held. All right. Next item on the agenda, item agenda number 14. This is an opportunity for anyone from the board or Dr. Sorenson to close us up with any remarks. Dr. Sorenson. >> Thank you, sir. Um, so I will close with two remarks. The first being um I want to just kind of take um a moment to give gratitude for an incredible weekend. Um normally I try to say something about forward. I want to take a look back. Um, this weekend was just, um, I don't know, super memorable, fun, um, uplifting in every way. Um, we started Saturday with our
151community coming together for our breast cancer awareness walk. Um, where we just had hundreds, what felt like thousands, I think they even said in an article, of community members out unified together um, for a cause. And um I say it on Friday nights and I'll say it on Saturday mornings. Um we are at our very best when we are together as a community. So it felt great. Um people are in great spirits. Um we were there to you know lift up our warriors who are still in the fight and um remember those who were lost but also to raise awareness and um you know really celebrate our survivors. And so it again it takes a team to do that kind of work. And so I really want to thank everybody who made that happen, but
152also just, you know, it was so great. Thank you board members who came out. It was incredible to have you there with us and but also just be one as a community. And then just a couple hours later, um, we had Pigkin where every single one of our La Hoya ISD marching bands and got division one awards. And so I was so impressed with their performance. um their teamwork, their just joy for being on the field. Um I had the pleasure of actually like handing them their trophies and running around on the field with them like a kid um all 53 years of me. Um but it was just so much fun and again it just was a wonderful feeling to be with community um on a Saturday night. So I say we're at our
153best on Friday nights. We're at our best on Saturday nights, too. But it was incredible. Um, and I'm so proud of our kids and our band directors and all the work that goes into it, Mr. Adame. So again, um, and we had other districts here who were like, "Oh my god, this is so incredible." I was like, "Yes, we are incredible." So, um, so just thank you again to board members who came out and really celebrated with us and lifted up our kids. Um, your presence is just always incredible. So, um, yeah. So, as a superintendent, that was a that was a great day. So just like to point those out in La Hoya ISD and thank everybody who just makes those days happen. So thank you >> members of the board. Do you have
154anything to add to for those that were there? >> Yes. I want to say congratulations to all the bands that made it to area and good luck at area because I know we're not going to get together again for another board meeting to be able to wish you guys good luck. So I hope all bands do great November 1st and I believe the other ones uh I believe this is it the 25th of October. We got one band and then November 1st we had two bands going and competing out there. So I already have the schedule. I'm going to try to make it to the November 1st. So I can't wait. It's exciting. Um so good luck again. And it was great. This weekend was amazing. All bands did awesome jobs. So thank you. >>
155Any other members? >> It truly was a spectacular weekend. It was fun. So much unity and just go pack win. >> Yeah. Go pack. >> Yeah. You can tell how much uh how much fun you are having, Dr. Sorenson. Uh, and so Blanc, I want to take this opportunity to thank you for the videos that you continue to put out. I, as I mentioned to the p, I've mentioned in the past, I don't have cable. So, the only thing I have is YouTube. So, I always watch what you guys are doing. So, thank you for that. And thank you to the presenters today. You all did a really good job. I was telling Dr. Sorenson earlier and the members of the board how impressive the the um the presentations were today and how informative they
156were and I really appreciate it. Dr. Little SP, I mean, welcome aboard. didn't recognize without your cowboy hat, but you guys have done an amazing job. Everyone has done a really good job and thank you for keeping us so informed. Uh, as mentioned earlier, we take a lot of pride in what we do and we put a lot of work uh behind the scenes, but nobody does it harder than you guys do. So, we're very grateful to all of you. So, with that said, do I have a motion to adjurnn? >> I move to adjourn this meeting at 9:09 p.m. >> Do I have a second? >> I second the motion. >> All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose. Ladies and gentlemen, we are journ