001Evening everyone. Good evening. I hereby call the meeting to order. It is 5:39. 5:39 p.m. I should be exact. I'm going to go ahead and call roll. I'll ask you to identify yourself starting from my right. if you're here. Jessica Troy, present. Carlos Marco, present. Anita Chavez, present. Alisa Pña, present. Rosala Hernandez, present. Sen Jun, present. Great. We have quorum. Everyone is here uh this evening. Next item on the agenda. If you're able to do so, we're going to do the pledge. Please stand and face the flag. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands one nation indivisible with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. Ladies and gentlemen, the next item on the agenda is our public hearing. The
002item is 4.1 notice of public meeting to discuss the 2025 2026 budget and 2025 proposed tax rate. This will be presented by Miss Cresbow. Miss Cresbow. Good evening, Mr. Alvarez, President Dr. Senson, board. Uh tonight we are presenting to you the final uh budget for the 2526 um for approval. So this is what we are going to review today. Our legal procedures, what are key budget drivers, general budget, the presentation of the required budgets, a tax rate overview and the next steps. We want to start with our vision. Educational excellence is the right of every student. Reminder of our mission. La Hoya Independent School District empowers students to become critical thinkers, visionary leaders, and active contributors in their community, fostering a pathway to success for limitless opportunities in an competitive global civic and economic landscape.
003Educational excellence is the responsibility of all members of the La Hoya ISD community where we embody the belief system both in voice and action that results in a students who are prepared to realize their fullest potential. This is a also including our student outcome goals because our budget drives our actions in the district. Therefore, we are proud saying that our financial decisions incentivize and pro and promote our student outcomes. These are the legal requirements for budget development and approval. This is we are a district starting in July 1. Therefore, the budget must be prepared and approved by June 30th. That's why we are doing this presentation today. The budget must include estimated revenue and proposed expenditures for the following year for the general fund, depth service fund, and the child nutrition services fund. We did
004public publicize a notice of public meeting to discuss and adopt the budget. uh 10 days ahead of this meeting we um are presenting um the budget must be adopted before the tax rate which will be presented in September to you and the budget will be can be amended by board action as necessary after their adoption. What budget drivers we did this year? Uh our budget development and anchoring core commitments about keeping students at the center of the budget process. Empower principles to drive campus decision aligns with DASBY guidance and best practices enable transparency around budget shortfalls and the realities that we were encountering and using academia return of investment framework to revise realign and reimagine what we were doing in our district. We committed to four budget priorities for 2526 budget and during our development.
005First of all, invest in a student achievement. That is our our mission or vision and that's was first in our in our purpose. Second, balance the budget. Third, generate a pay raise for all employees. And fourth, invest in high quality instructional materials. We have several budget assumptions. We started with we based this budget in 22,000 students enrollment and 19,558 ADA. As you remember this is enroll we are in enrollment declining. We are estimating and projecting 689 students less for next year. So we have to adjust our budget for that projection. We are estimating a budget an ADA average attendance um 93.6% which we hope is going to be higher. Uh our property taxes are estimated a decrease of 8.7 pending all on on in addition pending elections and the decision for uh increase on home
006state for $140,000. investment in earnings are budgeted at $3.7 million which we want to result um having a higher return of investment on that. We will work on that and also we have changes due to HB2 law impacting the revenue calculations and how we are um able to invest those revenues. Next I'm going to present to you the budgets that we are adopting. First of all is our appropriation by function as required by law. On the top you had your revenue for $256 million 256433,395 and or expenses at 254 um with 200 am I am losing my eyes I'm sorry with 285 um we I want to highlight that there there is a small difference between the workshop and what you have here when we did the calculations as I told you we were we
007were this the law was signed that day and several calculations had been changed and interpretation of the law had required us to adjust. So as a commitment to the expectation from the board and the community, we went back to the drawing board. We review some of the investments, some of the activities that we were plan planning to do and stayed inside the expected excess on revenue that we show during workshop. So this is a hard work that we did in order to align our expenses to what the revenue was is looking like based on the latest interpretation of the law. HB2 is still being analyzed and we are going to have to come back um if things change further. This is a very nice way for us to show you where we are expenditures are
008and how we are aligning our investments in a strategic plan priorities. We also can showing you that we increase our investment in instruction that is all functions uh 11 12 etc by uh at 62% versus 53.9% from last year. We also engage on a strategic staffing ali realignment that is helping us to redistribute this funding back to campuses and investment on students. We have we did the commitment of salary increase and that is included in here. And we did a realignment of student needs and campus priorities to ensure that we were responding to what we are seeing the needs of the uh of our students. the big uh the highest functions used in the in the investments and where we are using our funds are mostly in instruction with a 57% this function 11 is
009direct instruction when I was saying the investment to students on 63% is all investments in on functions 10 10 11 12 so those are um functions related to student services function 23 is the second highest and is the school leadership. Function 36 is the extracurricular activities is cost for school sponsor activities such as sports and arts. Uh function 41 is our general administration central office and and other administrative functions and function 51 is facility maintenance and operations. Appropriations for object codes is here to show you how the majority of the funding as all most of the districts in Texas are invested on personnel. 77.6% of the salaries um is in in La Hoya ISD are invested on personnel and is this is we consider a healthy approach because it's not as high as we have
010seen in other places. It's between usually it's between 75 and 80%. appropriations by function and this is the first of the funds the second fund that I am required to present to you and this is the child nutrition services fund fund 101 and the revenue estimated is $21,85,000 with 316 and our expected um expenses will be 19,952 with 587 with an expected fund balance balance unudited of 8,229 226. The next fund that I must present to you is the depth service uh fund 599 for a total estimated revenue of 17,544179 544,179 with an total estimated appropriation of 15 million uh $350,000. um with a fund balance of 6 million estimated 6,694,179. This debt service fund pays the district principal uh and interest for long-term debt obligations and it just indicates that we are paying our
011debt and we have less capital to be less um principal to be paying to. The next uh approved uh request is for the pay raise proposal. This is the same uh estimated um expense that we presented during workshop and this is the impact of the leg legislative session. Um we are still receiving guidance on how and who will receive this uh increase. Therefore, this will be impact as expected by law by September 1st, giving us time to do the estimations and analysis that is required by law. The second portion of our raise is the 4% raise requested to all our employees. Um, this is an estimated cost of $6.6 million. Again, a 4% to all based on midpoint and also to be implemented September 1st. The next required portion for me to present is the
012estimated tax rate and taxable property values for 2526 compared in this case with 2425. This tax rate is reduced from the approver approved 2425 because we are losing our um disaster pennies and also we have a decrease on tax property tax collections. That means that we are losing some of the in the funding that we received this year from the t from the tax uh collections. In November, we are expecting the homestead exemption to increase by $40,000 there thereby reducing further property tax collection 2526. What is our next steps? Our next steps keep monitoring refined ADA and weighted ADA reported to TA for impact. Our final submission is in July. We want to be sure that we are reporting on the the best numbers possible so we don't lose revenue in our analysis. We also
013need to monitor legislative bills and the interpretation of such bills. So we are sure and um that we are following the requirements of how to spend the increases on invest um resources that we are receiving. We also have to await for the certified property values for the CAD in July and that will re will make us re-evaluate the total tax rates and that is what we will present to you in September and that's when we republish those final tax rates and then in September we will adopt that new tax rate for 2526 and we will have a resolution and another board approval. And with that, I have finalized my formal presentation of the budget hearing for La Hoya ISD for 2526. Members of the board, do you have any questions for Miss Chris? Okay, seeing
014that we don't have any, do we have any individuals with comments or questions about the notice of public meeting to discuss the 2025 2026 budget and 2025 proposed tax rate? Do we have anyone from the audience? If you do, let me remind you that you do have a time and you will need to sign up. Has anyone signed up or is anyone want to speak on this? Correct. Okay. Secretary Pena, do you have anything? Yeah, we're going to go um ahead and um list the names that um sign up for public comments for tonight. So, first of all, we will have Miss Pamela Flores. Uh if you want to make your way to the podium. Those that have signed up, again, a friendly reminder that you do have three minutes. After three minutes, our vice
015president will inform you that your time is up. So, if you could please uh identify yourself and you may proceed. Good evening, members of the board, Dr. Sorenson and community. My name is Pamela Flores and I stand before you today not only as a proud product of La Hoya ISD but as someone who deeply loves and believes in this community especially in the power of athletics to open doors, build confidence and create lifelong opportunity for our students. As a passionate advocate for our student athletes and especially for the advancement of female sport programs, I've engaged I've had the privilege of engaging in honest and at times difficult conversations with our superintendent, Dr. Marcy Sorenson. In those conversations, I voiced the concern shared by many, the lack of female leadership representation in our athletic department across
016both our high schools and middle schools. What followed is what I believe leadership leadership is truly about. Dr. Sorenson, you did not just hear me, you listened. And more than that, you acted. For the first time in our district history, we now have female athletic coordinators at each of our comprehensive high schools. This is more than just a title or a role. It is a message to our young girls that they too belong in positions of leadership, that their voices matter, that their journeys and athletics are valued and championed. Your decision to empower our female athletic programs by providing women not only the opportunity to be the voice of our female athletes, but also the authority to be make meaningful decisions, a powerful step forward. You are sending a clear message a that leadership is
017about trust, vision, and inclusion. We are proud to be among the few school districts in the state of Texas extending this level of trust and responsibility to our high school female athletic coordinators by allowing them to make more hands-on role in supporting and developing theater programs within their clusters. You are reinforcing a culture of intentional leadership and growth, one that will benefit generations of student athletes to come. What makes this even more powerful is that this is not done for recognition, political gain or favors in return. This was done for the right reasons. To build a better, stronger, and more inclusive athletic program for all. It reflects a bold commitment to equity, progress, and student centered leadership. To our school board members, thank you for standing behind the decision and supporting a vision that puts
018our students, all of our students, first. Your leadership and willingness to create space for female voices will have a lasting impact not only on the field but in the classrooms, locker rooms, and communities across La Hoya ISD. Excuse me, madam. Minutes have expired. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Flores. Thank you very much for the comments. Thank you. Yes. Our next person had signed up. Um, we're going to hold off to the second section of public comments for the rest of the comments. Okay, great. Again, thank you very much, Miss Flores. Very well noted. Anyone else? If no one else has signed up, um, this will conclude this portion. We do. Yeah, we had uh we had two separate um um sections for public comments. This one was supposed to be specific to budgets, so
019we called you prematurely. So, we'll have another section for comments. So, to be clear with the with our um attorney, will Miss Flores have time on this second portion? Correct. Okay. So, Miss Fletus. Okay. Miss Flores, so you will have time during the of the next portion of our meeting. Thank you. Okay. If no one else has signed up at this time, this will conclude this portion of the public comment uh period uh which was to uh to discuss the um 2025 2026 budget 2025 proposed tax rate. And we are now uh going to close this portion of the meeting. It is 5:59 p.m. So, if I may ask board member Selso Gomez and Miss Jessica Cho to go to the front of the dis. Ladies and gentlemen, I hereby call the regular school board
020meeting in order. It is exactly 5:59 p.m. Item 6.1 recognition of 2025 2025 UL state solo and ensemble contest outstanding performers. This will be presented by Mr. Adamame. Mr. Adame, nice to see you again, sir. Good evening, Dr. Sorenson, President Alvarez, esteemed members of the school board, administration, and guests in attendance. It is with immense pride and excitement that I stand before you this evening to recognize two exceptional students who have achieved the highest UIL student honors in Texas music education. Each year, thousands of students from across the state participate in the UIL State Solen Ensemble Contest in Austin, Texas in late May. These young musicians dedicate countless hours to perfecting their craft, often rehearsing long after the school day ends, working one-on-one with their teachers, and holding themselves to the highest musical and personal
021standards. Out of over 100,000 students who participate in the UIL music process statewide, only a select few are named outstanding performers at the UIL state level. This award is not given lightly. It represents superior artistry, technical precision, and an extraordinary level of musical maturity. Tonight, we are proud to recognize Juan Figureroa and Elan Mandonal, who earned this prestigious recognition of being named a 2025 UIL State Solen Ensemble Contest Outstanding Performer. We can applaud for So, their achievement places them in the top 1 to 2% of all student performers in the state of Texas. This recognition not only honors their talent and hard work, but also reflects the dedication of our fine arts teachers, the support of their families, and the unwavering commitment of our district to providing students with access to highquality arts education. Again,
022please join me in celebrating Juan and Ian for representing La HoyaD with excellence, class, and musicianship at the highest level. To commemorate this recognition, Juan and Ian are receiving a UIL state champion gold medallion who has been draped over both of them by their teachers, a recognition plaque, and a yard sign so they can show off their accomplishment. Congratulations to both of you. You have made your district, your teachers, and your community incredibly proud. Juan Figaroa. Okay. Juan Figaroa from Huarees Lincoln High School earned his distinction on Alto saxophone. Juan is accompanied tonight by his mom Liliana Vjo and stepdad Federico Veco. His teacher Mrs. Zaya Manda and standing in for the administrator at Lincoln, Mr. Eduardo Flores. [Applause] Congratulations. Elan Maldonado from La Hoya High School was recognized for his outstanding performance on piano.
023Elan is accompanied tonight by his parents, Jesus and Kotim Maldon, and his sister, his teacher, Mrs. Karina Dape, and standing in for the campus administrator, Mr. Eduardo Flores. How about one more round of applause for both of you? Congratulations. Congratulations. Great job. Great job. Thank you, Mr. Lame. Dr. Sorenson, I know that you know these individuals. Is there anything you'd like to share? I am just always so proud of our students. They work so hard. Um, and we definitely keep them busy inside the district doing all kinds of performances for us. Um, but they are just so talented and I am so proud of them. um and the amount of work that they put in. It's it's not only shows up in in their performances, but in their spirit. And I just of course the
024adults that support them. We cannot go without recognizing their directors and their teachers and all the folks on the campus who spend endless hours, endless hours, right? I'm looking at my athletic coaches, but fine arts is in the same vein. I mean, they spend endless hours preparing our young people to, you know, display their greatness. And of course, it's always amazing to see parents and families standing with them because, you know, as as parents, we sacrifice a lot to make sure that our students, our kids, our kiddos get everything that they need and everything that they deserve. And so, we are so proud of you. We just look forward to continuing to watch you flourish and be great. And um we love you. Good luck to you both. So now this brings us to the
025next portion of this part of the uh of uh of our meeting which is again the public comment specifically for our board meeting. Uh each speaker again is being reminded that you have three minutes for your remarks. At the end of three minutes uh our vice president will inform you that your time is up. I'm going to go ahead and uh uh allow uh Miss if you would like to continue with your remarks, Miss Flutus, you're certainly welcome. You could be our first speaker and you have up to three minutes at this portion of our meeting. I'll just finish off. Yes, ma'am. It says uh to our school board, thank you. Let me go back. Thank you for standing behind the decision of supporting a vision that puts our students first. all of our students.
026Your leadership and willingness to create space for female voices will have a lasting impact not only on the field but in the classroom locker rooms and communities across La Hoya ISD. Tonight, I simply want to say thank you on behalf of our student athletes, our coaches, our young women, and now see now see themselves reflected in leadership, but on behalf of every little girl in our district who dares to dream big. Thank you for listening. Thank you for believing. And thank you for choosing to lead with purpose. Thank you, Miss Flores. Secretary Pena, our next speaker. Uh, next up we'll have Miss Katie. Um, apologies that, uh, your last name is written in cursive, so I'm not sure what that is. If you want to come up to the stand. Oh, Garza. Katie Garza. Thank
027you, Miss Garson. Good evening. Uh, board president Dr. Sorenson and members of the board. I am coach Katie Garza. I am the head coach uh for the girls basketball team at Palm View High School, and I want to thank you for the opportunity uh to speak this evening. Uh over the past few months, our superintendent made the time to meet with members of the athletic program and truly listened as concerns were shared, particularly around the issue of fair compensation. Our concerns were not only acknowledged, but met with understanding and meaningful action. On behalf of the coaching staff across the district, we want to offer our gratitude to each of you on the board for improving the increase in coaching stipens. We hope that you truly understand that your decision is more than just a financial
028adjustment. It's a clear message that you value the work, the time, and the heart that our coaches pour into each student every single day. This increase is a meaningful step forward, one that helps close the gap and moves us in the right direction. While we recognize there is still more to be done, we are encouraged by the progress and by your commitment to those who give so much to of themselves to this district. It's a powerful reminder that we're not alone in the work. That behind us stands a board and a superintendent who believes is in us, who believes in us and continues to advocate on our behalf. Many of those coaches are here with us tonight. We're not here out of obligation. We're here because we care. Because we believe in the work we
029do and because we are proud to be a part of a district that is moving forward and taking its people with it. And tonight, we walk away feeling valued. Dr. Sorenson, members of the board, thank you for believing and investing in the power of athletics to shape lives. And thank you for reminding us that we are all working together side by side for something greater, the future of every student at La Hoya ISD. We are honored to serve this community and we are more committed than ever to to giving it our very best. Once again, on behalf of the entire La Hoya ISD coaching staff, thank you. Thank you, Miss Secretary Pena. Next up, we have um Miss Vanessa Brown. If you want to make your way to the podium, please. Good evening, Dr. Sorenson,
030President Alvarez, board members, and district leadership. Um, last week my son came home from AdSie summer school uh and held up a piece of brown paper with red and black splotches on it and a word written in the corner that started with the letter M. And I looked at him and I said, "What does that say?" And with pride in his voice, he looked at me and he said, "Mommy, Marikita, I have gone to school for a really long time, and I did not know that a marikita was a ladybug, but my three-year-old did. because of the time and the energy and the commitment that our district has made to ensuring that our students are bilingual, that they are educated in English and in Spanish because my son would not have learned Spanish at home.
031And so it is a great honor for me to know that he goes to school, that he's learning a second language, that he is connecting to his culture, to the culture of this community, of the community in which he lives, in which his parents grew up, but in which we are not able to teach him the word marikita because we didn't know that word, right? Um he started his journey in prek3 which is another gift that this district has given my child all of our children and I am so grateful because not every district invests in our youngest students. Um he sobbed on the last day of school. He was heartbroken because he thought he was never going to see his EA family again. And when we took him to school on the first Monday
032of AdSie, you would have thought we were taking him to Disney. He was so excited to see his teachers to be at his school. And that's another gift, another four weeks that he gets to be in the place where he learns and where he knows he is loved, where he knows he's going to go do fun things and eat in the cafeteria and play in the playground, right? Cuz at home, mom makes him pick up his shoes and put his clothes in the laundry room, right? And so I want to thank you for investing in these programs because every day I get to come home to this three-year-old who is teaching me new things because we as a district, you as our board, our leadership have decided every single day to come to work and
033put our children first. And so I want to thank you for choosing that over and over and over again because what you do is hard. Excuse me, ma'am. Your three minutes have expired. Thank you. Thank you very much, ma'am. Thank you to all who provided us with comments tonight. We have We have one more. Oh, we have one more. Sorry, Miss Vanessa Brown. Jesus. Yes. Again, if you could state your name for the record. Good evening, President Alvarez, Trustees, Superintendent Sorenson, and District Leadership. My name is Jesus Garza, and I'm here tonight on behalf of the Association of Texas Professional Educators, also known as ATP. We want to begin by expressing our gratitude for being included in decisions and conversations this year in a meaningful way. Having a seat at the table means a great
034deal to our members. It reflects a district leadership that values transparency, collaboration, and trust. ATP is especially encouraged to see the proposed reinstatement of the special education stipen. This step acknowledges the incredible demanding work our SPE educators do every day to support some of our most complex and exceptional learners. It is a move that not only supports those teachers, it affirms our share belief that all students deserve expert committed educators by their side. We also want to thank you for the proposed raise for all educators. After years of doing more with less, this gesture sends a clear message. Our educators matter. They are valued and they are a priority. That said, we also recognize and we know you do too, that this can be the finish line. We see this race as a beginning, a
035foundation to build on. Continued investment in compensation is essential to attract, support, and retain the kind of educators our students deserve. Thank you again for your time, your leadership, and your continued commitment to the people who make our classrooms come alive every day. We are proud to be part of this work with you. Thank you very much, Secretary Pñena. Do we have any others that have signed up? That concludes our public comments for tonight. Thank you. So, that concludes all of those that have signed up for public comment. Again, thank you very much for all of those that did. Our next item on the agenda is superintendent updates uh by Dr. Marcy Sorenson uh and Dr. Derek Little. Dr. Little, I'm going to turn this wonderful piece over to you. Um, there are some announcements
036that we are very excited to make tonight around new campus leadership. Yeah, new campus leadership. Some of you might want to stick around and and see who we're announcing. Thank you. All right, Dr. Little. Thank you, Dr. Sorenson and board, we are so excited to announce these leaders and and where they will be serving uh in La Hoya ISD for next year. Uh as I call your name, please come up here uh so everyone can see you better and celebrate you more. And we're going to start with Dr. Dolores Ajo. He brings 14 years of experience in education to his new role as campus principal in La Hoya ISD. He began his career at Diaz Vieral Elementary where he served as a fourth grade teacher, lead teacher, curriculum writer, and district presenter, earning teacher of
037the year honors in 2020 2021. He later served as assistant principal at both Sam Ford and Benvdz Elementary. Dr. Ajo obviously holds a doctorate uh in curriculum and instruction from the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Throughout his career, he has modeled and led professional learning communities at both the campus and district levels, ensuring that students and teachers are supported through collaborative datadriven practices and aligned instruction. His contributions also include serving as a reviewer for the Texas Education Agency STAR English Writing Assessment where he collaborated with educators statewide to ensure alignment and fairness of test items. We are so excited to announce him for Flores Elementary where he is committed to working alongside students, teachers, parents, and the community to ensure that everyone has access to educational excellence. Congratulations and thank you, Dr. We're checking
038something real quick. Okay. So, can you come over here real quick? I can't believe that that gentleman that you just introduced us to is been an educator for how long? 14 years. I thought he was one of the students we were going to recognize tonight. I was like I thought he was one of the students. I was like we still got recognitions of a different kind. Of a different kind. Thank you. Okay. All right. You may proceed, Dr. Little. Thank you, President Alvarez. All right. Next up, we're so excited to welcome Miss Julisa Garza. She is a Yes, she is a dedicated and accomplished educational leader with over 21 years of experience in public education. Miss Garza began her career as an elementary classroom teacher where she spent time or sorry, nine impactful years fostering
039academic excellence and supporting the holistic development of her students. Her deep commitment to student success and her passion for supporting teachers and families led her into educational leadership. Over the past 12 years, she has served an assistant principal at both the elementary and middle school levels, gaining a broad perspective on student needs and instructional leadership. For the past seven years, she has proudly served as assistant principal at Lloyd Benson Elementary in La Hoya ISD. During this time, she has played an instrumental role in cultivating a positive and inclusive school culture, promoting high standards for teaching and learning, and building strong partnerships with families in the community. Miss Garza is honored to continue serving the school that she loves and knows deeply. She remains steadfast in her mission to empower students, support staff growth, and foster
040a collaborative and high achieving learning environment where every child has the opportunity to thrive. We are so excited to announce that Miss Garza will serve as the principal at Benson Elementary. Thank you. We're going to continue with some more elementary announcements. And first up, we have Miss Irene Fernandez. She is a dedicated leader and educator with 34 years of experience in public education with instructional excellence and a deep commitment towards advancing all students for success. She began her career as an elementary teacher in Macauan ISD. She then continued with La Hoya ISD as a middle school assistant principal and principal, attaining a profound comprehensive understanding of student learning and leadership. For three years, she served as principal at Desavala Middle School, leading with passion and advocating excellence for every student. She then successfully served as
041principal for 16 years at Kikadella Garza Elementary, creating a vibrant and engaging learning environment for high student achievement. She is a passionate leader about collaboration and teamwork, empowering teachers to create a positive school culture that fosters student learning, family engagement, and a school community where every student excels. We are also deeply grateful that she has served as interim principal this year at Thelma Selena's Early College High School and are so excited that you will continue with us as principal at Leo Elementary. All right, we have Miss Irma Ramirez. Woohoo. Yeah, she brings over two decades of dedicated experience in education to her new role as principal at Sam Fordise. With a strong foundation in early childhood education and a passion for supporting diverse learners, Mr. Mr. Ramirez has consistently demonstrated her commitment to student growth
042and acade academic excellence throughout her career. Her experience in education spans more than 20 years, including nine years as a pre-K kindergarten teacher and three years as a dyslexia reading teacher where she focused on developing early literacy skills and providing targeted instruction for struggling leaders. She has served as an instructional supervisor where she supported curriculum planning and instructional strategies and continued her journey as assistant principal at Kika de Garza and at Joseé de Escandon Elementary. Beyond her roles in the classroom and campus, she has presented at numerous state and national conferences. Miss has played a vital role in the district level professional development, delivering sessions on topics such as grammar instruction, mathematics, cooperative learning, and bilingual education. Her expertise and enthusiasm have contributed to the growth of educators across La Hoya ISD. She is deeply
043honored now to serve as the principal at Sam Ford Ice Elementary and is committed to fostering a positive, inclusive, and academically enriching environment for all students. Thank you and congratulations. So happy to welcome Miss Media Fletes Gheta up next. She has over 30 years of experience in education, including 18 years as a principal. She has established herself as a dedicated student- centered leader committed to student achievement and staff empowerment within La Hoya ISD. She began her career as a bilingual teacher at JFK where she nurtured a love for reading and fostering the academic growth of her students. Miss Flores Gheta later served as an instructional supervisor at EB Reena where she played a key role in enhancing instructional practices and supporting teacher development. She returned to Kennedy as principal where she led students and staff
044in the pursuit of academic excellence and continuous improvement. Her leadership journey has continued at Leo where she served for two years and at Ivanhelina Garza where she served for 11 years successfully implementing state and district initiatives designed to ensure student success at every level. Miss Fuesca has also served as a bilingual director and as part of the title one priority schools initiative as the district's shepherd. Her passion remains rooted in working with young learners at the elementary level. She is a passionate advocate for equity, student growth, and educational excellence, believing that every student has the ability to learn and thrive. She is committed to cultivating an environment that encourages leadership, accountability, and academic success. We are also so grateful to you for serving this year as interim principal at Garza Elementary and are so excited
045that you will lead Mindola Elementary moving forward. Thank you and congratulations. This one is a little bit different. It's more like the official coronation for Miss Wilma Bradley. Uh please come on up. So we are very proud that you are now officially uh the full principal at Tabasco Elementary and you have a journey that is deeply rooted in the very heart of that school and community. You are an experienced educator but a product of La Hoya ISD in this community. Tabasco is where her passion for education first began where she proudly served as a prek assistant for four years. The values, traditions, and strong sense of family she experienced at the school have shaped her educational philosophy and leadership style. With 16 years of experience, Miss Brantley has worn many hats, always focused on student
046growth and success. After her time at Tabasco, she went on to teach fourth grade dual language at Sigin for two years, followed by five years as a fifth grade dual language teacher at Pena. She later expanded her impact in the secondary level, teaching seventh grade at Lorenzo de Zavala. Her journey came full circle when she returned home to Tabasco, this time as assistant principal, a role she served in for the past four years. Miss Brantley brings a deep commitment to fostering a welcome, inclusive, and high achieving environment for all students. She believes in the power of strong community partnerships and is eager to work alongside family, staff, and students to continue building on the proud legacy of Tobasco Elementary. Thank you so much for your work this year and congratulations for tonight. That wraps our
047elementary school. So, we're going to move into middle schools next with some familiar faces. And we're going to start with Miss Mary Sapola. She is incredibly proud to be an educator, a lifelong learner, and a passionate advocate for student success. She has been married to her high school sweetheart, Robert, for 33 wonderful years, and together they have raised three amazing children. She has called Palm View home for the past 49 years. Her educational journey began as a migrant instructional assistant at Lincoln Middle School in Macauan ISD, where she discovered her passion for working with students and supporting their growth. From there, she transitioned into the classroom where she had the privilege of teaching first, second, and third grade across multiple settings. During that time, she served as a grade level chair and represented Leo Elementary
048on district committees, leading instructional planning and team collaboration. Her career in leadership includes five years as an elementary supervisor at LEO and two years as assistant principal at John H. Cherry in Cherryland ISD. For the past 11 years, she has had the incredible honor of serving as the principal of Joseé deandon STEM Elementary. She believes high expectations with no excuses and fostering a culture where student leadership thrives. Her goal has always been to create an environment where students feel safe, supported, and inspired to engage in meaningful educational discoveries. She is committed to ensuring every child receives the opportunity to reach their full potential in a nurturing, challenging, and inclusive learning community. And we are deeply grateful that you answered the call to step up and lead and Richard's middle school. [Applause] Continuing with middle schools,
049we have Miss Sil Sylvia Trovinho Sandival. She has served the La Hoya ISD community for 26 years, dedicating her career to fostering student learning and success both at the elementary and secondary settings. Her journey began in the classroom at Tabasco and JFK where she spent 12 years teaching at the elementary level. During that time, she served students across all grade levels as a reading specialist and as a classroom teacher for kindergarten through third grade in both mono and dual settings. These early experiences instilled in her a deep appreciation for literacy development, language acquisition, and the foundational skills that shape lifelong learners. Driven by a passion for instructional excellence, she went on to serve as an instructional supervisor at the elementary level at Escondon and Diaz Vao, later transitioning to Lorenzo Deavala Middle School, where she
050spent five years as testing coordinator and master scheduler. For the past six years, she's had the honor of serving as the proud principal of Henry B. Gonzalez. In that role, she remained in her belief that all students are capable of learning, growing, and thriving when provided the appropriate learning environment, instruction, and support. Her leadership philosophy centers on placing students first, advocating for their needs, and building a school culture where both children and educators are empowered to achieve excellence. We too are so grateful that you have answered this call to go to Lorenzo Desavala as the next principal. We are going to close out our evening tonight with two high school announcements. Starting with Mr. Eduardo Flores. Yes. Born and raised in the Rio Grande Valley, he witnessed firsthand the challenges of poverty and the transformational
051power of education. His parents, both migrant workers, instilled in him the values of hard work, faith, and determination. As a child, he traveled with his family to Michigan, Minnesota, and North Dakota as a migrant farm worker. Though he didn't fully understand those experiences at the time, today he is deeply grateful for how those moments shaped his commitment to education and service. His father, Baltimore, thank you, was also a plumber by trade and worked alongside him throughout the valley. This taught him resilience, grit, and the value of education. These early experience to help mold him into what he is today and continues to fuel his purpose. His path in education did not begin in the classroom, but as a high school security officer. That role revealed to him his passion for working with students and sparked
052a lifelong commitment to helping young people achieve their potential. He has also served as a permanent substitute in Ed Couch Elsa, then at Edinburg, and finally as a social studies teacher and soccer coach at Wades Lincoln High School. He served as a mentor teacher, department head, and assistant principal. He holds himself personally accountable for the success of students, staff, and the entire school community. His mission is clear to lead a campus that inspires trust, promotes transparency, advances literacy, and delivers excellence to every student. And we are so excited that you are bringing that to La Hoya High School. Thank you. And to wrap up our campus leadership announcements this evening, we have Miss Leanne Alanise Herrera. She is a proud La Hoya High School graduate and lifelong educator. She brings over 25 years of impactful
053leadership in public education across elementary, middle, high school, and district levels within La Hoya ISD. She's a dedicated product of the district, consistently championing student achievement, equity, and innovation through visionary leadership and strategic system design. Serving as principal of the Academy of Health Science Professions in STEM, Miss Alanise Herrera founded and grew the program into a district-wide model of excellence, earning accolades such as the RGB Lead Academy of the Year award. Under her leadership, the campus achieved a 100% graduation rate with all students earning their CCMR standards while also boosting attendance and academic performance. Her career reflects a consistent focus on instructional quality, dropout prevention, community engagement, and student centered systems. She has led schools out of improvement status, implemented successful dual language and mentoring programs, and secured over $2 million in grant funding to
054expand student opportunities. With a deep commitment to her roots, Miss Alanise Herrera continues to invest in the future of La Hoya ISD, leading with purpose, innovation, and pride in the community that has shaped her. And we are clearly delighted in the room that you will be leading Palm View High School. Thank you so much. Thank you. Did you have anything else, Dr. We do have something else and they're being resistant back there um to to come up, but we have two central staff announcements within academics and school leadership to make as well. Um the first one is certainly familiar to the to the deis up here with me but we are sharing that she will be transitioning into a new role. So, Miss Annette Lazano who has recently this year served as our executive director
055of K12 Humanities and prior to that has spent 22 years in La Hoya ISD working at Benvitz Science Memorial and more recently as principal of Trevvinho has really recognized the need to serve the district in a different capacity and so we are excited tonight to announce her as the executive director of student family and community engagement and support for La Hoya ISD next year. Thank you so much. The last piece of news for me that we are very excited to share is Miss Marta Castillo who is who we are taking that interim tag off. So, she stepped up back in the fall when we needed support in special education and a day-to-day leader and really just responded um fully committed to what the district needed in the moment in special ed. There are times where
056I thought she may have regretted that. Um but she still stands here super excited to bring her knowledge of instruction to special education to ensure all students receive quality services in education. She has 34 years of experience overall in education, 21 in of them in La Hoya ISD across a variety of campus base and central office roles. And I for one and deeply grateful that you are going to lead the transformation that we and our students need in special education in La Hoya ISD. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. Okay. Is there anything happening with Jamie? She's got the next presentation. Jamie, come on. You're scaring me, Jamie. Uh, before we move on to the next, Dr. Sornson, would you like to say anything regarding the recent announcements Dr. Little made? Um, I'm just beaming
057with pride and just excitement for what's ahead. Um, you know, I think my, you know, principal is sitting there like we've been together all day and it's been an emotional day, right? We we talked about a lot today. Um, but walking out of that and into this, I mean, how could you not just be inspired by the vision, the passion, the fierceness, and the unapologetic way each and every one of you are going to lead your campus with intentionality and care and honesty and with a laserlike focus on student outcomes. I am so hopeful and they know I don't use the word hope very often because hope is not a strategy but I am so excited for what is ahead for each and every one of the schools that we just named tonight. I say
058this every time. Each one of them had to go through a very rigorous process to get to this place in space. Several interview panels that ends with a one-on-one interview with me and again we talked about it I think today in the principal meeting. Then interviews with me are not normal. Um they end up more like conversations. Um but the conversations are more about who you are because leadership matters most as you step foot into these roles. The children, the employees, the students, the families count on you in such a way that is profound. The nucleus of change is at the campus, not at the district level. And so you stepping into this these roles absolutely superb. Chef's kiss. So excited. I can't wait to see what's ahead. Thank you, Dr. Sorenson. Yes, I too
059would like to convey that I'm excited that you've all accepted these new roles. You could see the energy and your it was just infectious when you all were standing there. So, we're very excited for all of you. So, thank you for that. So, I'm going to have to retract on something that I did because there's so much in front of me. I had the budget in front of me and then of course I had regular meeting. I failed to recognize that we did have one more person who had signed up for public comment. And so, it's Brenda Selenus. Is she in? Miss Brenda Selenus, I'm sorry that I missed you. Are you here? There she is. Again, as a friendly reminder, you do have three minutes for your remarks. [Music] Miscellinus, I apologize for that.
060So that's my mistake again. Overwhelmed with paperwork this morning or this afternoon. You may proceed. Well, good evening, Mr. President, esteemed board members, Dr. Sorenson and community members, Loya AFT. Thanks Dr. Sorenson and her team for the for working with us on important issues. You listen to us as we address key topics including races, reinstatement or reinstating special education assignments and also improving working conditions just to name a few. Now during the board meeting on June the 4th, I was very pleased or excited to hear Mrs. Gresu's budget presentation and Mrs. Miller's propos proposal for the compensation plan. It was very clear they were excited and I think that everyone in the room was also excited and felt the same way. Now, tonight, the monumental work involved in this budget for the 2526 fiscal year
061will be approved because our leaders know this budget includes a welldeserved notable 4% raise for all La Hoya employees and know this budget is very important again because it also states the special stipen and so many other things that were highlighted on June the 4th. And tonight, I know this bud budget is going to be approved. So, with that being said, I want to make sure that everyone knows and even our uh brothers and sisters that while we're not the highest paying district in the region right now, it's important for us to be competitive and this budget aims to achieve that. We believe we can reclaim that title in the future and I think you all agree with me that our district employees are amazing and many of whom are fellow union members. As a
062president of La Hoyft, my colleagues and I will continue to have a robust partnership with Dr. Sorenson and her team. Together, we'll ensure that our members voices are heard and respected, and we look forward to continue our professional partnership with with Dr. Sorenson, her team, and the board. Um, we've had various platforms. Dr. Sorenson, the cabinet team, I thank you very much. The loyalty members, thank you for being there, for listening. We appreciate everything that you've done for our district, for our students, for our members, for our employees, and for the community. So again, Mr. Alvarez, President Alvarez, board members, Dr. Sorenson, and cabinet team, thank you for being receptive to our members and for your strong leadership. Your professional collaboration is vital has been vital in moving our district forward and your commitment to
063transparency is commendable as we work to rebuild this district. It truly takes outstanding leaders like you to accomplish great things for those they serve. So again, thank you. Mil gracias. Thank you, Miss Alenas. Thank you to both of you. And again, my apologies for not acknowledging you earlier. With that said, that ends the our public comment section uh of the today's present or tonight's board meeting. Next item on the agenda is 8.2 compensation plan 2025 2026. This will be presented by Miss Miller, chief of human capital and talent development. Miss Miller. Well, that was a great introduction for me bringing back the ISD 2526 compensation plan and I'm very excited to get to bring this back to you. And good evening, President Alvarez, members of the board, and Dr. Sorenson. So, we are going to
064just go over a few of the elements of the compensation plan that was presented at our last board meeting and we do have district staffing principles that drive this work. We are looking at driving student outcomes, addressing role clarity, aligning with research and best practices, finding efficiencies and cost savings, eliminating redundancies and duplication, discontinuing ineffective programming, and suns setting and retirements. When I presented, we did have some takeaways from our compensation plan. Remember that we listen to our employees and work to address their needs to stay competitive and to ensure that we're retaining our amazing employees in the district. Our staffing and compensation decisions are always driven by student outcomes, role by improving student outcomes, role impact and clarity, and operational efficiency. We looked at salary evaluations and that was grounded in our internal assessment,
065market analysis and our return on investment. As always in La Hoya, we are following policies and that is the same for our pay policies and guidelines that govern this work which is DEA, DEAA and DEAB. We made stiphened adjustments and you heard one of those this evening from our athletic coaches, but also expanding special education and fine arts. And then as always, we are going to commit to strategic compensation, including the teacher incentive aotment. I also said that we were going to have a job fair on June 10th and that happened with very positive results. We had over applicants come to our job fair on um June the 10th. If you look at the chart, that big spike in applications was on that day because our amazing technology team came out and helped um our
066app helped the people who came in and 152 candidates were able to apply on site. So, they were able to get help if they needed help putting anything in. We had 74 recommendations that day, but we had many other uh candidates who went into pools that then went to the campuses. So, we're continuing to hire from those pools. So, I just want to thank the cabinet team, the departments, the principles, the campuses for giving their time and for coming out. and I needed to let you know that we had um employees from other districts come in and say, "I saw your draft compensation plan. I came because I was so excited about what's going on in La Hoya and that we had other candidates letting us know that how transparent that they saw that our
067hiring practices were transparent and fair and they were extremely excited about that. So, thank you to everyone and to my very small but mighty team who helped to make this job fair happen. So, what were our next steps? We did release the draft compensation plan on June 5th and had overwhelming positive feedback on it. So, we're asking tonight that you vote to approve the 2526 La Hoya ISD compensation plan. And I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have. Members of the board, do you have any questions for Miss Miller? Well, that's a good sign. Go ahead. Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Miss Miller. Next item on the agenda is It's me. It's It's you. Yes. Yeah. Dr. Sornson. Um, yes. District priorities. Yes. Year end update. Right, Blanca? Here we go. Okay. So,
068um here we are. And so, um this will be my last presentation on this year's district priorities. Um and we'll get into this a little bit. Um but we're going to transition as a district from district priorities to our strategic plan next year. And so, um, in fulfilling our commitment, I wanted to give the board and our and our public, um, one final report on our district priorities. But before, um, we get into that, I always think it's super important that we ground ourselves in our vision. Um, because as we, um, live by our district priorities, um, it is grounded in our vision that educational excellence is the right of every student, every single student in our district. We wake up every day understanding that our role is to provide educational excellence for them. And
069then our mission and thank you board for um next leveling our mission and really being clear about that um educational excellence is the responsibility of all members of our community. Um that that educational excellence shows up in both voice and action. that we encourage voice, we encourage participation, we encourage action um from our community. Um and that action and that voice and that partnership results in students who are prepared to realize their fullest potential and are prepared um for the global civic and economic landscape ahead of them. As always, the thing that drives us um is student achievement every single day. And we are affirming our commitment. Um, and that is what I, you know, I was talking about with the principles today and with our central office team. Affirming our commitment to our student
070achievement outcome goals and our board goals. Um, third grade readers, third grade mathematicians, eighth grade readers so that they become college and career military ready. That's the path and that is the path that we will stick to until we accomplish the goals that are set before us. And then we're going to create new goals that are going to be higher because we do not rest until we are where we need to be for every child in this district. So again um to provide transparency to everyone as we go through this um always want to ground us in definitions. Um, so as we think about what on track means and what slightly offtrack means and what offtrack means, um, as I status these district priorities at the end of our year, um, really want everyone to
071know that on track means that the district priority action has already been achieved, implemented, or will be by the end of the year without any significant intervention by the superintendent and the executive cabinet. slightly off track means that the district priority action has been implemented with varying levels of success and varying levels of fidelity and in order for us to achieve this um space this priority and the intervention will require attention from the superintendent and division leadership. And off track means that the district priority has not been implemented or um we haven't had much success because of a lack of fidelity or a lack of implementation. And in order for us to achieve um the district priority, there was um severe intervention and attention from the superintendent um or division leadership moving forward. So those
072that's how we're defining um on track, slightly off track or off track. Oops, sorry. So again, um won't read all of these to you, but priority one um is customer service always for front of mind. Um every single day as we come in, we are here to serve. We are servant leaders and customer service is something that I expect of all employees whether they work at central office or the campus because we are here to serve our employees, our families, our community, but most importantly our students. And so um here is a um oversight an overlook at customer service. So, in terms of providing ongoing training and support for district employees, um we're on track and because there have been multiple trainings for multiple groups of employees across the year. Um and professional learning is
073ongoing and there was not a need for me to have any level of intervention. Um each department that was responsible for training um kept it going throughout the year. Um and so we are on track with that to create and clearly communicate district systems. We are still slightly off track um because systems and processes and central office divisions need to be more developed um and we need to be consistent in implementation. Some departments are doing a great job with customer service and others not so much. So it is inconsistent across the board and it is also inconsistent from central office to campus. And I heard a lot about this as I did strategic planning, as I engaged with family and community. I mean, Blanca is shaking her head because she was at every single meeting.
074Thank you, Blanca. Um, but we heard a lot about um customer service from our campuses and how that needs to improve and how that needs to continue to be a priority as we move forward. Administering customer service um surveys twice a year. Um strategic planning input. Um we gathered a lot of data um and we are also moving that into a superintendent constraint established around trust and transparency. But um as we did surveys, several surveys, calendar start and end times, strategic planning, high school principal surveys, budget process input. These were just some ways that we did surveys across the year um across the district to engage our staff. Um and lastly, the division of operations and infrastructure did administer their own surveys um twice a year. Um and so this is on track. I will
075report out on behalf of operations and infrastructure. Um very clearly um Mr. Sado is here as well. Um and thank you for being here as a representative from operations and infrastructure. Um so the customer survey is directly for our employees who work in operations and infrastructure. And so what you will see here is that you know the the survey was anonymous um cell phone compatible both in English and Spanish. It was open for three weeks. There were nine questions um so on and so forth. And so we're very happy to share the spring results. And so what we see overall here were the participation rates from each one of the departments within ONI um you see the lowest obviously being custodial um but I'm sorry they're at 100% now the lowest was 86 um when
076they did it at the beginning of year and so you can see um growth in custodial um but pretty high participation rates overall um we hit above 94% Um overall um so we asked some very specific questions. I'm satisfied with my overall job responsibilities. And so you'll see um that the I'm sorry the blue bars actually represent where they are now. Um and so you'll see energy and compliance was at 100% transportation 84. Um the bars are over some of those but you can see that some department most departments um improved over beginning of year being satisfied with job responsibilities. I feel that my work is valued and appreciated by my supervisors. Again blue bars representing end of year. Um and so you will see um again improvements overall with the exception of transportation. Um
077I have the necessary resources and tools to perform my job effectively. Um CNS, energy, facilities, transportation overall all exceeded beginning of year. Um custodial stayed about the same. My work environment is safe and conducive to productivity. Again um we exceeded in almost all areas. And then I feel supported by my colleagues and team members in my daily work. And so um again, transportation is an area that we need to continue to work with, um as we move forward, but overall we see growth rates across the board. I'm confident that my feedback and concerns are heard and addressed by my leadership. I'm really proud um and I'm going to say this out loud. um facilities had quite a bit of growth. Um and that is a space in place that last year I heard quite a
078bit um that facilities wasn't feeling heard and that feedback wasn't taken into consideration and so to see that level of growth in facilities um congratulations to you Mr. Cidio. Thank you very much for your leadership. As an employee, I know the strategic priorities of La Hoya ISD and how they relate to my daily work. And the reason that we ask this is because sometimes I think in organizations of our size, we don't think about how important it is that all employees across the district know what our priorities are, right? We think it only lives on a campus or it only lives with our educators. It absolutely doesn't. the people who serve our children food every day. The people who make sure that our kids get to and from school every day, the people who make
079sure the lights work, the people who make sure that it's cool enough or warm enough. Um, people who make sure that it's clean and safe. I mean, it's really important that they know what our priorities are and that they are living and breathing those priorities as well and that they see themselves in those priorities because they are members of our family and our larger community. And so, um, that is one of the reasons we very specifically asked them, do you know what our priorities are and how they relate to their daily work? Um, and so just to give you again an over overview for those questions that were marked as disagree or strongly disagree, um, we found some trends and patterns, 40% of the comments continue to express a need for a raise. And so
080if the board so chooses to approve, we hope then that this will satisfy not not end the journey in terms of compensation, but meet that need to a certain degree. Um, 34% of the comments across departments express staffing concerns, number of personnel, and 20% of the comments across all departments continue to express a need for better equipment, more parts. Yes, I'm looking at Blanca. Um and so um I just again wanted to show where there were trends and patterns across the data but did want to bring to you again we shared our beginning of the year data and now our end of year data and so um wanted to continue with the transparency and the support especially of our hardest hardest um you know and I say this with the most love our educators work
081so hard every single day but there are unsung heroes in these departments who really show up every day in ways that doesn't get recognized. And so I really want to all the folks in O and I hats off to you. So that is um a wrap-up of the O and survey. Um we will continue to work with um our leadership in O andi to make sure that those employees stay top of mind um as we want to continue to retain um them and grow them into you know other district leadership positions. So, priority two, trust in transparency. Again, um here were the um leverage points that we were seeking to pull. And here we are in terms of um a communications plan. Um we stayed here slightly off track um as we were when we
082reported earlier. The department though I'm very excited to announce and we talked about it today with our leaders is being reimagined for new expectations for 2526 and um giving them positions that name them actually for positions that they are actually doing. We are bringing them into the you know right century in terms of positions. Um some goals in the plan are being implemented more strongly than others. Boldly telling our story versus bridging community to the district. Um, we tell wonderful stories to our community ev every day, every day, connecting our campuses to our families. Um, but how do we do a better job of talking about change and all of the things that are happening? Um, and how do we boldly tell that story in a way that resonates with our parents and our families
083and our community as we continue to make decisions across the district? Um, and that's where I talk about strategic communications. So then moving on to parent engagement. Um and again this stayed in the same place. Um the plan was not implemented this year as it was designed. Stakeholder feedback around parent engagement was very clear um during town halls during all of our strategic planning work. Um that parents don't feel engaged at the level that they need to. They don't have the information that they need to make really good decisions for their students. Um and the campuses again um did not engage in the activities that the plan designed for them this year and so that remained off track. Um town halls the superintendent advisory committees on track I'm very happy to say. um 23 town
084halls held this held this year, 24 superintendent advisory committees, plus two um district advisory committee meetings and over um 1100 participants in town halls, focus groups and small group meetings throughout the year um in terms of engagement. Super impressed with those numbers um and I learned a lot. Um, leverage student, staff, parent, and community feedback. Again, on track, community design day held in May yielded over 350 attendees. Strategic plan will launch in 2025 aligned with the community vision. And our centennial committee um in August, should I should I say it out loud? Um we're going to have a culminating activity on August 8th um to celebrate our culminating activity that brings our year-long celebration to an end. Um but that was done in deep partnership with our community. Um and so I also really I
085keep looking at Blanca, but Blanca, thank you so much for your leadership in this area. Um priority three, high quality instruction. Again, I I won't read these to you, but we talked about high quality instructional materials, dual language, quality instruction, um that results in academic opportunities that prepare for post-secondary success um and professional learning community models and instructional leadership teams that again promote shared decision-making but also result in student outcomes. And so, here we are implementing high quality instructional materials. We're on track. Our campuses have all their in high quality instructional materials that they were supposed to have this year. Um and weekly data was shared whether they were using them or not. Our campuses used what we gave them. Um the redesign and dual language again stayed off track because again we still have
086work to do. Um I really do thank uh Miss Brown for talking about her son. Um that is a great um data point and we have work to do. Um there is deeper work to do and I think that you saw that in our map data presentation that we have work to do in in Spanish language um and um ESAR across the board to make sure that our kids are truly bilingual um and biliterate. And so we have work to do there um as we implement and continue to implement the two-way model um focusing on delivery of highquality daily instruction. And so this um and we we are beginning to get our endofear data um in and so we have work to do in terms of instruction. We have stood here in front of you
087every single time that we have presented GPMs and board goals and we're off track. We are off track. And so as the superintendent, I will say that we have to commit ourselves every day, every classroom, every campus to high-quality instruction unapologetically. Students getting high-quality instruction cannot be luck of the draw. It cannot be because they get teacher A and not teacher B. It cannot be because they are at campus A and not campus B. And so we have to begin to talk about a tightly managed system that ensures that every classroom, every day, every child gets the very best instruction that they deserve. And so our GPMs are off track and we've been very transparent about that and our student achievement outcomes have not yielded results this year. And so I promise this community and
088I promise this board that we will come back in 2526 with a stricter, tighter plan. And I do use words like stricter or tighter because we have to be relentlessly focused on student outcomes. Our students must achieve at higher levels. I will not waver from that as we move into the next school year. I want to be very clear on that. Our students must achieve at higher levels. And so we are going to support our educators. We are going to support our principles. We are going to do everything that we are supposed to do as a central office to make sure that those on campus can focus on quality daily instruction and then um create structures to elevate professional learning communities and instructional leadership teams. Again, slightly off track. We've done some work with principles
089on this this year because professional learning communities and instructional leadership teams are vehicles to get to quality daily instruction. And if we are not yet seeing the results um in student achievement, that means that our vehicles aren't running at at high performance just yet. And so we have to create a high performance culture where everybody understands what the expectations are of PLC's and the function of an instructional leadership team and we will do that. Priority four, excellence in leadership. again um providing professional learning to all principles on teacher evaluation systems. Tests leverage the division of school leadership and academics to support, monitor and provide ongoing professional learning and feedback and implement leadership pipeline programs. Um and so here we are again professional learning for all principles on teacher evaluation systems. So we did it. Veronica's
090smiling at me. Um, we did it. We absolutely provided the professional development to all principles all year and yet it did not yield the results of having a calibrated system where um teacher evaluation, principal evaluation is aligned to student outcomes. And so we still have work to do on calibration. Um, so it, so while we did it, um, in full transparency to the board and the public, I always want to say that like just doing it doesn't mean that it's on track. Um and uh leveraging the division of school leadership and academics. Again, slightly off track because if again we are not yielding student outcomes in the way that we should, it is time for us to take a step back and saying despite all of our work on support, is the support yielding the
091results that that we need? And so what you will see as we come back in July is you will see a newly designed um campus supports approach um from central office to our campuses that we reviewed um with our principles today but we will share with the board um when we come back in July. Campus supports redesign is under construction um because we know that our campuses need support and how we then monitor the implementation of said support will really matter. Um, but here in terms of leadership pipeline programs, very happy to announce that 243 teachers earned TIA designations with over $3.1 million in earnings. Bravo to our educators and thank you Miss Miller for getting this on track. Um, we had our rising leaders cohort. Um, human capital talent development launched steps to leadership
092program. one out of 12 um became an AP and then human capital talent development launched pathway to the principal ship program and four out of 12 um are in the principal pool at this point um and um have the ability to become APS or principles within the system and so we are developing and growing our own leaders and I really want to point out that every single leader that you you saw tonight those are our own and so we are promoting our own. We are growing our own and we are celebrating our own because there is incredible talent here in La Hoya ISD. And then lastly, integrity and accountability. I always again jokingly call this Mirett's priority. Um but I share it with her because we are accountable. I mean a lot of this is
093why we we started here, right? which is an audit of finances. Um updates to the public on our financial status. Um realigning the calendar, you know, for dig district budgeting process. Um and conduct our external audit of special education services. And so for all of these and so I I want the board to hear this for me and the public to hear. We are on track here. We are on track for our audit of finances, district procurement processes and accounting systems. We did that and we did it well. Um that audit was deep and wide and we learned a lot and we already began to do the work of restructuring and refining many of the processes in that department. Same things with updates to public. We presented to the board multiple times. We're presenting a
094balanced budget tonight, including a raise without going into fund balance, making really good decisions for kids financially, making sure that money gets back into programs and classrooms, getting it back to our employees in terms of stipens, and that starts with a really refined budgeting process. Um, thank you to the team that is sitting out there that just supported and really helped make that happen. Um, and then our audit of special education services gives us a really clear roadmap of where we need to go next year in order to continue to do that work for our for our students. But I do again, so while I am thrilled that we are all green here, this sends really clear signals to me as a superintendent. Where I spent my time is where we are green. and I
095spent my time on adult issues. And what do we say in Lonear governance? Student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. And so what the board and the public can expect from me moving forward is my focus as a superintendent will change. I will become relentlessly, unapologetically focused on student outcomes. None of this will fall off of my radar at all because not only do you pay me to keep all of this on my radar, but these are part of exit criteria that we have to do. But we also made a promise to this community that we would deliver for their children. And so as we go through these priorities, you see where the where the reds and the yellows are. And so as a superintendent and a former chief academic officer and someone who
096has done um transformational work in student outcomes, I just want to signal for everyone that my energies and efforts will switch a bit to student outcomes. Um where I will be relentlessly focused on how our students are performing. So when that happens, don't be surprised because I'm saying it here live and recorded in public for everyone. Um, so that being said, always want to again continue to keep data in front of you. Strategic planning, stakeholder input. You've saw this before. This this is the level of input. And a lot of this again signaling for the board and the community was hearing about what was working and what wasn't working and where we needed to grow and where we needed to change. And so a lot of that though that I was getting was what wasn't
097working for our employees, what wasn't working for our staff, what wasn't working for our parents. And so that's again where I spent a lot of time. as I shift into 2526, we have to start thinking and talking about what's not working for our students. So, I just want to again keep that front and center. So, we are going to shift from district priorities to a five-year district-wide strategic plan that I will be very excited to unveil to you in August. It is under construction. Um but the priorities again that we will have is excellence and leadership, empowered graduates, thriving students, community trust, unity and partnership. And I will say that like my heart was just bursting seeing unity tonight and um operational excellence and stability because that has to stay a priority for our district
098to continue to thrive and heal. So for 20 for 25 our priorities are at the center of our work but moving into I want to be clear to everyone. So I don't want anyone to say like well where's where's customer service going to go? It's not going anywhere. So customer service trust and transparency high quality instruction excellence and leadership integrity and accountability. They will all still be priorities for us and they will still show up in the strategic plan. These values and this work will show up in our district strategic plan through our new priorities, our new initiatives and in measurable outcomes over the next five years. And we will continue to hold ourselves accountable and we'll have public reporting on each of these new five district priorities throughout the year just as I've done
099with this. We will actually even have thanks to Mr. Myasi a dashboard um that will show how we are doing on our um strategic plan and we will report that out to you three times a year. beginning, middle, and end. And so that concludes my presentation and the transition from the 2425 district priorities to um the unveiling of the strategic plan coming in August. So I am more than happy to pause and ask the board for or answer any questions from the board. Members of the board, do we have any questions for Dr. Sorenson? I don't have a question, but I do want to make a comment. Um first of all, Dr. Shenson, thank you and all of your team for all the work that you've done. I think we've seen um various areas across
100the district, right? Um from where they were and where they're at now. And we're um deeply committed, I think, as a as a board and as a team to continue seeing um the growth and the improvement um and all the positive outcomes that that we are continuing to see. And I think um today's comments were were a testament to that. So appreciate all the hard work and and you know we we're here as a board too to tell to let the community know that we're going to keep on pushing forward um so so that we can continue to see improvements with our student outcomes. Thank you. Thank you, Secretary Pña. Do we have any other questions remarks? Okay, seeing that we have none, our next agenda item is by um by Jamie Miller and it
101is the principal excellence initiative and it's all yours, Jamie. Thank you, Miss Miller. Again, good evening, President Alvarez, Dr. Swornson, and members of the board. Um, I think you all know that I'm very excited about strategic compensation and about the principal excellence initiative. But I have to say I am honored and humbled to have the opportunity to work in a district underneath a superintendent and a board that pushes us and challenges us to think outside the box and allows us to do that. that prioritizes innovative thinking to ensure that we're going to improve student outcomes and that recognizes the impact of having highquality teachers in front of every student, but also the impact of having a high quality leader on every single campus. There are not many districts in Texas that are doing this. You
102have to be brave, you have to be bold, and you have to be driven. So, thank you for allowing me to be part of this work because I am humbled to be part of it and extremely excited. The former principal in me is just coming out and I I can't wait for this to go into effect. So with everything strategic compensation is also grounded in our vision that educational excellence is the right of every student in our mission that we are preparing our students to realize their fullest potential and in our student outcome goals. So why do we need strategic compensation? We know that we have to build a culture that is based on excellence and high expectations in every department, in every campus, in every classroom for every student every single day. And that's
103where we're going to ensure that our students are meeting our vision, our mission, and that we are meeting our outcome goals. And as a district, we have to to make this happen and we are all responsible for this. But we also understand that there are challenges in education and some of those challenges are working conditions and pay. So on this slide this um they asked high school students why they would not want to go into education, why they would want to go into other jobs. A lot of them said it was because salary and compensation, that they feel like going into other industries and other professions paid more, that they could move up the ladder faster. Many of them said it was the environment and culture that they wanted to ensure that they were honored,
104that they respected, that they had training. And then professional development that they're getting the professional development that they need to ensure that they are able to do their job to their highest capacity. So I found this very interesting that you know we have high schoolers who are thinking about what do what job do they want to go into but when they're asked about teaching this is some of the some of the conditions that they don't feel would fit them or benefit them. So we know that teachers and leaders receive a slower rate of raises than other professions. Almost every district in Texas has the small steps where every year it's based on years and you get small steps moving up. That's also for our leaders. So we have people leading the profession are not going
105into education because they're not getting the compensation on a timeline that benefits them by the age that they need it. And we want to ensure that our teachers and our leaders have opportunities for that. As we look at strategic compensation, we are looking at a system that has worked in other districts. So, um, paying based on effectiveness has led to major gains in a few other districts and one of those is Dallas ISD. So, if you look at the purple graph, that was when we're just keeping pay compensation at the same rate. But once you start paying on impact, you see that student outcomes skyrocket because we are acknowledging people who are working hard, who are making a difference, and who are impacting our students and their outcomes. So this is something that other districts
106have done and they've seen amazing results with this. So where are we headed as a district? We have talked that we have teacher incentive aotment and that we are going to grow that program. We want it for all teacher categories, all assignments across our district. But we also know as a district that understands the impact of leaders that we need to recognize the impact that our leaders are having on campuses also and that we want to ensure that we have high quality leaders on every single campus. You asked me at the last board meeting how many districts are doing this? There are very few districts in the state of Texas who are doing strategic compensation. So there's 12 districts. So that's 9% of the uh state's administrators are within strategic compensation. 9% of the state's
107teachers and 10% of the state students. So we are very proud. If you look there at the tip of Texas, you see La Hoya ISD and we are building the model for the valley. That's exciting, y'all. Yeah, you can drive that. We're building the model. We're going to be the first district in the in the valley to start this. And that is super exciting and very proud, like I said, to be part of this work and to be the first in the valley. So we're going to talk about our strategic compensation system and that's our principal excellence initiative. So we do have a roadmap and we have been working on this since August but we really really started running in December and we are at the point where we still have a draft but we
108are finalizing our compensation our principal excellence initiative. Now, this is never f finalized because we know that this is working, that we are constantly having to change and grow with the needs of our district and the needs of our leaders. But we did have feedback with um Dr. Swenson's principal advisory council and they were amazing. They were just like, I I cannot believe that we're doing this. They were excited and they gave us wonderful feedback. We're getting feedback from all the principles, including our new ones that were just announced tomorrow during our leadership meeting. So excited to get as much feedback as we possibly can and to make adjustments as needed. And then during the 2526 school year, we will it will be a data collection year for us. And then we'll just keep moving
109forward. So we're going to talk about compensation, principal compensation in La Hoya ISD as of today. And I'm going to turn it over to Dr. Little to do that. Thank you, Chief Miller. So board, let's talk a little bit about what this problem or or what this uh system helps solve in terms of where we are in recognizing and really rewarding principles for excellence. Um this slide's a little bit hard to see. You got monitors right in front of you, so it may be a little more helpful, but each of those dots actually plots a current La Hoya ISD principles compensation versus student outcomes two years ago. Uh what got a little lost in the slide translation here are two comparisons. But if you look at dots vertically and you find some that are in
110the same vertical line, that means that we're providing the same compensation to principles at very different levels of student achievement because the higher you go up on this slide, the better student outcomes that we're seeing. The lower you go down on the slides, like our lowest dots there, that's our lowest student achievement. So, we should not have ultimately a principal that's receiving say the same $83,000 a year and one's getting 90% student growth and the other's getting 60% student growth. The other thing we could notice on this slide is if you look horizontally, sort of go left to right, you can find some of those dots are the same like on the same line across the page. That means we have actually a case of over a $50,000 disparity in compensation for principles getting the
111same types of student outcomes. We have some well over $100,000 and some below $100,000, but their student results are actually the same right now. And so part of what strategic compensation really does is gets us closer to an image like this where the better you do with student results, the more compensation you have the ability to earn in the system. So it really aligns focus and compensation with ultimately what we are concerned about with our goals, which are student outcomes. A way that that could look is us establishing various levels of performance uh with principles. As Chief Miller said, take all of these slides as super drafty. Like this is very much a work in progress. So we're not here saying that these are going to be the six levels and six words and sort
112of distribution, but this is getting us to the concept of where we're uh looking to go. And certainly we want exemplary and master level principles in our buildings. We know that teachers make the first and biggest impact on students. And second to that is campus leaders in the building. And so having the best leaders in our schools is really critical. That aligns directly with what we just did with our ACE model at Sigin and Garza. Like making sure that we're instilling really great campus leadership in those places. But how they're evaluated and ultimately how they're recognized could fall on a continuum like this where we want to see most of our principles more than 50% at the proficient or higher level. So those are folks who are doing the work, they're doing it well and
113they're getting good outcomes. And we certainly want to see fewer of our leaders at what could be called progressing or unsatisfactory where we're not getting the work done in the right way and therefore we're not seeing the results um that the campus and and students deserve. The other thing which uh principles really love this when we got to this part of the presentation, it starts to show the impact to the individual and what compensation could look like. Um, one of the many things that Dr. Sason and I share in our belief system is the oddity in Texas that just because you're an elementary school principal means you're automatically going to earn less money than a middle or high school principal. There is the notion in the state and the long-standing practice that it is a
114promotion to go from elementary to middle to high. I think Miss Lozano and I have hopefully stood here enough to make the case along with what Miss Ramos and Miss Uniga do that what we do in the earliest levels often matters the most. Um, nonetheless, we still have a system where elementary principles by definition sort of as a block earn less than middle school principles who then earn less than high school principles. But what strategic compensation can do, it can say if you are a rockstar elementary principal, you can actually earn more compensation than just a mediocre or average high school principal, certainly than a middle school principal. So this table lays out a scenario, again, take this as draft, where we could look at elementary compensation at the proficient level or higher, which gets
115an elementary principal into six figures. Middle schools and high schools certainly go higher than that. But if you look at the diagonals, you can start to see where our best elementary principles or our best middle school principles um can earn as much or more compensation than just serving as a high school principal. And that's really important because we keep great people in places that really need them the most. And the other thing that we have started to work on and get feedback from our campus leaders about is what the construct of this system really entails. So as we go about building a leadership excellence initiative, what are the pieces and parts that go into that? So this pie is just big picture what that could look like. Uh the biggest focus here on student outcomes.
116So in this model, 40% of that principal's ultimate evaluation could be based on how students did in that campus. Uh 25% is what is already in place with their uh it's called TASS. It's the Texas principal evaluation and support system. uh that's the rubric that we use uh to evaluate how principles are doing. And then two other components here, instructional framework, how well this point superintendent just made um I appreciated that there was a little yellow on that slide and not all red because unfortunately in the next presentation we're going to see more red in our data. Um but in in to the point that how we are actually doing instruction every day in the classroom has to be top-notch and we've got to get better at it. And so how principles are leading that
117work with their teachers and with their campus shows up in the instructional framework component. And then just as we talked about in the district priorities um their operational things which are really critical that we have to do uh as a campus leader and so that could be a portion as well. I want to call out that we have total flexibility right now on what goes into this pie chart and what proportion of the weight it has. So that's part of the feedback conversations that we're undergoing. Not to go as detail into this as what's on the slide, but just to call out a few things. As we take each of those pieces of the pie, it breaks down into something very concrete. Like we have to be fair to our campus leaders for them to
118know exactly what we're saying matters in this system and how that's going to be measured and how we better support them uh to do well in this area. So leadership effectiveness again at this draft would come exclusively from their evaluation system which we use the same evaluation system that most districts across the state use. Student outcomes and I do want to pause here for a second. We spent hours like most of the day today really digging into data with principles and talking about the journey that we've been on and really reflecting and understanding what we got to do differently and and better moving forward. That is a journey both of proficiency, how well our students are doing doing in achievement. Did they achieve grade level expectations or not, it is also a journey of growth
119and we've got to have more and and better growth for our students to ultimately improve achievement. So, this really balances that for principles and recognizes not every school is at the same starting place. We're not going to expect that. But how we're growing and improvements improving student outcomes is really what's going to get all of our campus to this place of excellence and get us to that northstar goal of more AMB campuses overall. The biggest piece that is draft in this whole conversation is what's in blue and that's what's in the instructional framework. So there's going to be a lot more conversation uh over the summer and into next school year on exactly what these pieces are trying to figure out what are going to be the highest leverage and most impactful ways that we
120can through this system like nudge and have expectations for our principles that directly lead to improved instruction and improve student outcomes. So know that these things may change even though we will continue to focus on HQIM, PLC's, ILTS, etc. like what specifically ends up in in the rubric and the measure. Uh we are adjusting. The other thing I want to call out here, which is super important and goes back to a conversation we had in the fall and one Chief Miller led today with principles, is we also have to see that how we're evaluating and having conversations with our teachers about where they are in their journey and the support they need to grow has to better align with our student outcomes. So, right now, this draft includes direct statistical correlation that you've got to
121meet to get that part of the credit in this space. And then finally for operational effectiveness, really looking at a few uh key things including safety and security. Are we doing the right things with our audits um and security checks? Are we spending our money in the right ways? Are we engaging our families authentically and sincerely and treating them as trusted partners? And what is the overall culture and climate of our campus? The proposal right now to measure that is how well are we retaining not just any teacher but our best teachers at the campus. And so that's a look again holistically. I I hope we can agree that this is is a a pretty comprehensive and holistic view of what the principal's role and responsibility is and how we can really recognize that success.
122This slide gets into a lot of sort of wonky data. We don't have to go deep in that tonight as we continue to build it. it starts to lay out how we would actually measure um each of these things and how principles would earn points in the process. So I think Chief Miller is about to come back and wrap us up. The other thing I would say and again um going to move past this because it's all in draft as we work on what that instructional framework is. But at the end of the day, we will be super clear and explicit with our principles on what's in this system, what they have to do to really be successful in it, and take the opportunity to really recognize and celebrate the great work that so many
123of our campus leaders are doing every day in the district. As we close, I just want to stress that we know that principles and leaders have a lot on their plates. We are not adding to their plates. We are helping them to organize and prioritize what's already on their plates. We are going to coach them to ensure that they know how to organize and prioritize that and how they and that they know how to increase student outcomes. But there's also an accountability piece in this that helps us to hold ourselves accountable and to hold them accountable to making sure that we're prioritizing the right things on our campuses. Thank you, Miss Miller. Members of the board, do you have any questions regarding this portion of our presentation? I have a question. Um I just kind
124of thought right now as you're explaining um this these targets about the leadership effectiveness, student outcomes and all that and kind of showing how these campuses are starting off at different levels, right? And so how these principles will be allotted this this score, right? I was thinking since these campuses have um these campus designations that some campuses have like the bilingual designation, the fine arts designation, all that. Does that how do we see that being I guess coming the next year where we have these new criteria rubrics and maybe that sort of designation might add an extra item on the plate. Are those designations still going to be in effect next year? How does all that still work out um with all these changes that are kind of coming along? I can answer that first
125and then you can build on it. Um thank you for that question, Vice President. Um what I would say is that first and foremost, we have to pause and acknowledge to whe those designations really exist. Um I think one of the things that we heard overwhelmingly during strategic planning is that um what the designation and we heard this from parents and families and community members and principles and everybody is that um just because it says fine arts outside of a building or just because it says STEM outside of a building um and I think we found that even from our um um our quality seats analysis that those programs don't truly exist and that programming isn't really living and breathing on that campus. um any of the campuses as a matter of fact with the
126exception of dual language at two of our middle school campuses that is being implemented sort of um so we have to I would say as part of the strategic plan really take a step back and as our work through system of great schools um really continue to decide if those designations are real or not real and if they are not real we need to stop pretending that they exist And if we want those kinds of schools that then through our journey of SGS actually create those kinds of spaces if there is a demand across the district for those kinds of spaces. Right. Thank you Dr. S. That's kind of where I guess I was getting with that question is like you know do they really exist? What's being done and how is it really even
127um affecting these campuses and and so that was kind of where Yeah. Thank you. Absolutely. Any other questions, members of the board? Any other questions? So, we heard a presentation very similar to this when we were up in uh Austin this weekend. And so, we I learned a lot. Like, we learned a lot. And so you started off your presentation by saying that the perception out there was that if you worked at an elementary school principal, if you were had that role that you would that you were getting paid less than than what you would receive as principal at a high school. And so what I'm learning today and you used you mentioned a couple of things, but what I'm learning today is that we're changing the mindset, right? I mean what we're going to
128say here and if I'm mist if I'm not mistaken right the better you do as a principal the better you the better you're going to get compensated right I'm not even sure if I'm using the right terms but that's what I'm hearing right we're compensating the impact yes that they have on student outcomes and on their campuses and that like I said is brave and bold and we're driven to do this and there's not very many people doing that but yes and it's changing the culture yeah I I love it I mean we heard that this again, right? And so it was really and I was kind of like, "Wow, this was really good." And just just uh just to take an opportunity here, Marcy, you did a really good job of explaining this to
129us and and it was pretty cool because we got to talk to some of the other districts, right? And so some of the things that you all have referenced like stakeholder meetings, right? I'm like the fact that you even met 23 times, they thought that was crazy when we were in our little work groups and they were like, "Well, doesn't your superintendent meet with the public?" and they're like can't say a word but they're like no way there's no way we would do that. I'm like that's crazy because in our district we do that right and then I can see the the term transparency really having a meeting a meeting here in La Hoya. They're truly transparent and I've watched multiple schoolboard meetings around the state. I still do this to this day learning to
130see if there's anything we could do to improve. Right. But just seeing that we talk here about what Marcy needs to work on or what we need to do to improve the district outcomes, right? I mean, it's it's really amazing. So, when I see you, Miss Miller, and how emotional you get because how invested you are in this community and your teachers and your job, we see that. And so, and it's certainly evident. It's certainly evident. So, I wanted to thank you for that. But, and thank you. But we it was certainly this SGS training that we went to this weekend thought it was just another type of training. It was amazing and then it was really cool to see that La Hoya was the only district south of San Antonio that was part of
131that. So good to see that. Thank you members. Do we have any other questions or any comments you'd like to make to those that just presented? If not, thank you very much, Miss Miller. Thank you. So Mr. Little, Dr. Little, I see that you have the next presentation. It's a 9.3 uh first grade map growth map at the 50th percentile or above end of year. Uh GPM 2.3 second grade math growth math at 50% or above end of school year grade six through eight math math math math end of school year. Boy, that's going to be tough. That is a tongue twister. Yes, it is. Uh, and so I think you all know what I'm saying, but if you could proceed with your presentation, I appreciate it. Thank you, President Alvarez. Yes, sir. So, we
132are back this evening with another uh goals and GPM update. Uh, last meeting, we talked about where we were with literacy from our MAP data. Tonight, we're going to look at where we are with MAC. Uh, again, we know that this situates uh with our vision of educational excellence, the right of every student. We are not there yet. We are not providing educational excellence for every student in La Hoya ISD. and and that's what this data continues to show. Also working on our mission of ensuring that we have incredible opportunities uh for students in the district. So tonight we're going to look specifically at goal two which is related to third grade math. As always though, we're going to share other grades data with you. Uh so we'll start by looking uh at our GPMs
133which look at kinder, first and second grade as well. Just like last time, want to do a quick uh just visual check on what this looks like for a student. Tonight, we're not presenting STAR data. Uh we will come back and do that at a future presentation. This is our endofyear map data and sort of the journey we had. But just like we did last time with literacy and we showed the difference in what student in a first grade classroom had to do at the beginning of the year versus what they had to do in the end of the year, this is showing a similar thing on the math side. And again, you can see incredible change in rigor and expectation across the course of the school year. Starting here on the bottom, uh where
134we've got to know how many superheroes there are in the picture. And then by the time we get up to the top, uh we've got to be able to know the relationship between different numbers, which one's larger, which one's smaller, which one's the same. So the expectations over time continue to increase. Therefore, our growth over time has to keep pace to ensure students can meet those higher expectations and actually stay on grade level. Just like we did with literacy, want to pause and just give a quick sort of summary of of takeaways in this data. Uh, as I mentioned earlier, we spent the bulk of today with our principles really digging into a lot of data. some which we'll share with you in in coming meetings as it continues to get cleaned and refined uh
135with TEA. Uh and and unfortunately like none of it is really good and we know that we have gone certainly backwards in many places uh in our data and just as we did in the literacy conversation want to acknowledge a few of those things that contribute to that and talk about how we are shifting our practices as we move into next school year in response. What we will see in tonight's presentation compared to the literacy one is higher growth. Um, literacy was pretty bleak when we talked about it. Like hardly any grade level actually did better from beginning to end of year. And when we talked about growth, we never quite caught back up to where we were. We certainly didn't get to where we had our targets. Uh, we're going to see better growth
136in math. That is promising because we put a new math curriculum in place in K8. So we fundamentally started to change the way students have to engage uh with math and with concepts and what teachers have to do. So that growth is starting to show up. It is not yet sufficient to actually get us to the achievement levels that we need to get to. And it was not enough to actually improve overall outcomes when we think about uh star data uh with the lonear governance tagline that we always talk about. Student outcomes don't change until adult behavior change. there are still more adult behavioral changes that we've got to make as a district with me, with my team, with campus leaders, and with principles uh all along the way. The other thing that I want
137to call out when we look at this data, we didn't make any curricular changes in the high school space in math. That was all a K8 focus with Eureka and Carnegie. Same thing with Blue Bonnet next year. But do remember that next year we will have new highquality curriculum for algebra 1, algebra 2, and geometry. So similar to the literacy conversation, there will be much more intentionality and focus of support and expectation uh in our high school grade levels when we think about these outcomes. Similar story here in broad our broad call to actions. Uh yes, we will have new and um really better resources certainly in the high school space next year. We are working on more training and professional learning for teachers and researchbased instructional strategies. None of that yet has happened at
138the teacher level. Uh we did just like with literacy retool some of the instructional time each day. We mentioned this for middle schools last time. I want to reiterate it like we figured out a way to create 45 minutes a day for every student to get additional resources and support without having to trade off any other class uh in their schedule. Uh our middle school outcomes are not at all where they need to be across the board. And so that structural change is really key. But to something the superintendent said earlier, it's not just that we created the time. It's how we have to use that time next year and what adults and students have to be doing together. So we we get vastly different outcomes overall. And as we shared before, what we're doing
139with our supplemental resources has to go from basic usage to actually getting deeper into impact and teachers using that data uh to better guide what they're doing with students. Quick reminder here uh in our our statusing again we've used this consistently over time. We are going to see one really good example of how we've define this in a super rigorous way. District has to meet it, campuses have to meet it, every student group has to meet it. We're going to have a slightly offtrack measure. Um but we actually did better as a whole district than what the target was. So as we have more of those conversations this summer, tonight provides a good data point on how we can maybe grapple with that moving forward. So, our official GPMS here, first one is kindergarten readiness
140with the Texas kindergarten entry assessment. That's actually not a MAP measure. It is a different assessment specifically made here in Texas. Um, that is the one that is slightly off track, but you'll see that we actually exceeded that district target. And then we're going to look at first and second grade. And again, I'll share some other grades with you as well. So, here with the Texas Kindergarten entry assessment, we did this at the beginning of the year at the very start of kindergarten. That's a required thing that districts across the state have to do. There's actually a couple of assessment choices, but we use the most prominent one, the Texas Ka. And then we did it again at the end of the year to really see what trajectory did we have uh with student learning
141and growth. Here you see that we exceeded that dotted line. So we did better uh than our target uh by multiple percentage points here. So that's again what I really wish I was up here presenting in every data point uh tonight in an upcoming presentations. Uh but this is a sign that some of what we were doing in our kindergarten classrooms absolutely was benefiting and impacting student learning and growth. Yes, superintendent. Um board president, can I make a comment, please? Yes, please. So can you go back one slide for a second? Dr. Little. So one more. Thank you. So, I know that we will um in our board um retreat workshop this summer talk about how we define um you know on track, slightly off track, off track. And so notice that we exceeded the
142target like here's an example of why um I feel like we need to have a conversation about the definitions. This is a great example um and why we we need to talk about how we're holding ourselves accountable to the highest standards and also being realistic because as you see we exceeded our target but because we have to our own selves we define this as all student groups all campuses we would never have the opportunity here sitting in front of the board to say we're on track because we ourselves said all. Now again, we understand that we absolutely need to strive for all every day, every classroom, all the time. That being said, we've exceeded the target that we set forth. And so I just wanted to pause and show this as an example that most
143of our campuses did this work and did it well enough to where we exceeded the target across the district. And so as we engage in these conversations about these definitions, as we still hold ourselves really accountable for next year, this was an example that I wanted to pause and really say. So here was the team and our educators. I really want to keep saying that. It's really deflating for our kindergarten readiness, our teachers to say like we exceeded the the target and yet we're still slightly off track. So, how we also message this as our educators are working so hard to not only meet targets but exceed them um becomes very important in our discussions moving forward. Thank you so much for that, superintendent. All right. Right. And as the superintendent just laid out, just
144a couple other things on this slide. When you look at the bottom where we always show how each campus did, that's again really why this is is a yellow status and and not a green one. Um but the other incredible thing to notice here is all of the growth that we see campus by campus by campus. Like those red bars are consistently higher um than those blue bars. So that's absolutely what we want to to see and build off of. Uh and in this case, every one of our student groups actually exceeded those targets. So, we got two out of three here uh in this one uh for kindergarten readiness and math. We're going to pivot now back to MAP. And this is first grade. So, again, overall story here off track. What we actually
145can notice is we did a little better than where we started at the beginning of the year. it just was not enough to get us where we needed to be to ultimate achievement outcomes. Uh overall, we can also see for campuses, not all, but most of our campuses actually did better from beginning to end of year, but again, it wasn't enough growth to actually change the overall outcome. And then um a little bit stronger here in second grade. We see a bigger growth from beginning to end of year overall. um campuses again many of them did better from beginning to end of year but this wasn't enough to get us to the actual target. The only other reminder I will have here is we talked more about this this summer as we sort of conclude
146our view of map data for this school year we had no prior comparison. So as we set these targets, we didn't really know where the district would end up because we didn't have historical data to gauge that by. Now we've got three data points in a whole years of work that we can make much more informed um estimates and target setting as we move forward over the next four to five years. Board President, if I could add something. Yes, please. Thank you, sir. Um and this is where we've already begun conversation um for our workshop in August um working with MAP NWA um with our assessment and accountability department and really started looking at rigorous targets for ourselves. I want to be clear rigorous targets for ourselves and when I say ourselves it's for our
147students. what are the systems and supports that we're going to put in place so that our students can meet targets growth and proficiency. Um, but we also now again are working with our partners to say so now that we have a year's worth of data, right? What is a rigorous and aggressive growth target? What is a rigorous and um aggressive, you know, proficiency target as we then look to then talk about what our GPMs will be moving forward? Now that we have a baseline data for the district. Yeah. So, we're going to move away from our official goal progress measures and look at other grade levels. We'll continue with elementary here, third, fourth, and fifth grade. Um, third grade actually did really well overall in getting close to what that target was. When we come
148share our star data with you, we're going to see that did not fully translate into our meter or higher star data. But from a map journey like the the shape of that curve and the growth that we see that is on the right track. We just got to figure out how do we accelerate that even more and get bigger growth. Fourth grade also did better than beginning of year. Fifth grade is where we see less uh where we essentially stay flat across the year. Remember students were learning more as they went through fifth grade. they weren't learning enough new content at the higher rigor level to actually change achievement. And then when we get into the middle school space, um this is kind of all over the map like what this data looks like. Sixth
149grade is moving in the right direction. Seventh and eighth grade not really. And what's super interesting in in the eighth grade space with algebra 1, um those are students who historically and again this year did quite well as eighth grade algebra 1 students are at meets their masters when it comes to star like they are accelerating their their pathway. They're taking algebra one a year early and they're generally doing really well. That doesn't show up here uh in our MAP results in terms of growth over time from beginning to end of year or the overall levels of achievement. So, so this is again as I talked about middle school space, we have a ton of work to do everywhere. We also have a particular ton of work to do uh with our middle schools when
150we look at outcomes across the board and the growth that we ultimately did not see um this year regardless of of content. And then this just also puts all of those into our our LSG formats. Again, these aren't GPM, so there is no status, but we can see uh campus level data at the bottom. I'm going to go through these a bit quicker to get to overall um algebra 1 data here by campus. So, this starts to pull in high schools as well because remember, we have most of our students actually taking algebra 1 as a ninth grader. Um and that's historically when they take that end of course exam. Uh but we have many places that didn't actually show growth from beginning to end of year. And so that's something again with new algebra
1511 curriculum next year, better campus supports, higher expectations every day of what's happening in the classroom and our team, my team having much more direct visibility and engagement in those classrooms on a regular basis um is what we are working on to improve results overall. So to to wrap us up, this is uh familiar I I think at this point, but we are keenly focused on how we increase the quality of daily instruction in the classroom. Both at the tier one level, which remember is the ongrade level expectation for that student, but also how we're providing tier 2 or tier three, which is specialized and more targeted intervention and support to students who need it. that comes along to circle back to the MTSS conversation we had with our special education audit. That's building and
152launching a new MTSS framework and system uh for next school year. Yes, we will have new curriculum. We know that is important but not enough to actually change outcomes. It's really how we're using that curriculum and providing that instruction every day. uh and we will continue providing deep and rich professional learning and support for teachers to be using the best researchbased instructional strategies in the classroom. Uh and then I am really excited and looking forward to the overall campus support system that we're in the process of building uh for next school year so that campuses receive much better uh support guidance uh and follow through from from our team and what we do with them every day. And with that, happy to take questions. Members of the board, do you have any questions for Dr.
153Little? Yes. Dr. Little, I have a question in relation to on slide 110, the algebra there. Was there any additional analysis and the reason for the drop? So, is there a potential correlation between behavior or u perhaps Attendance definitely. So, and as we split out eighth grade versus 9th grade results, um, again, part of it is students are at a different place like mathematically in their capacity and skills typically as an eighth grade algebra student versus a ninth grade algebra student. Um, but we part of what we looked at with schools today was what chronic absenteeism and overall attendance looks like. Has room to improve everywhere. Elementary, middle, and high school. Our high schools have so much work to do when it comes to attendance and chronic absenteeism. Um, roughly a third of students at
154every school, if not more, are chronically absent. And so the way we the superintendent sort of pushed me to clarify that in a different way today. At minimum, if you're chronically absent, you missed a whole month of school in the school year. With the rates of chronic absenteeism we see at our high school, some of those students have missed two or three months, yes, of the school year. That's a third of the whole school year. So, if I'm not in the classroom 33% of the time, it's going to be real hard for me to learn that algebra. And so, that is absolutely a contributing factor. Um, back to Miss Lozano, like we're making structural changes in that student, family, and community engagement team uh to have dedicated staff members who are focused on improving attendance
155and reducing chronic absenteeism every day. Uh so, that will absolutely be a strategic lever that we are super focused on uh next school year. And I suspect our multi-tered support system is going to help prevent that from occurring. It absolutely will help because attendance is one of the key things as part of that multi-tered support system. Yes. Thank you. Uh Dr. Lel, it's um it's evident, I think, that we're seeing improvements um but we're also raising the bar higher. Um, that being said, what are we hearing from from the teachers in the classroom in terms of what they need or what we we can help with as an as an administration? Yeah, I think there's a range of that. On the math side in particular, what we heard the most from from KA teachers this
156year is that the math was different. Um, the way Eureka and Carnegie approach instruction is certainly the right and best way. Again, Blue Bonnet is going to continue to do this. um but it's asking teachers and students to think more like a mathematician. So it's not just I know the procedure or I know the routine. I actually have to understand the concept behind it and then be able to apply it in other areas. So this tested some math knowledge and skills of our educators as well. Uh that's back to us again. We got to provide that in the- moment professional learning or coaching needed to help uh address those gaps and help teachers really get better. The other thing that we've got to do a better job of next year is in that application space.
157We can't just stay in the concept of of the math. We've got to get to application and we have room to grow for sure and how we're helping teachers and students do that in the classroom on a regular basis. Yeah. Dr. Little, during the time that they're not in class, you mentioned professional learning. what are we doing to improve that or just to help help those those math teachers? So, part of it is the researchbased instructional strategies training. Again, that's best-in-class work across the nation, taking what we know really changes and improves instruction. Um, that's a different answer in literacy than it is in math. So, these are customized for for those teachers. That then helps us help principles know when I'm in a classroom, am I actually seeing the teacher do those things? And
158if I'm not seeing the teacher do those things, we can then understand if that's an individual teacher growth opportunity and how we provide support to that individual or if we're seeing trends, whether that's a whole grade level or a whole content or multiple schools are all struggling with this. We then have professional learning systems in place where we can pull those people together. Some of that is as simple as, hey, Thursday afternoon for an hour, we're going to do a quick uh teach on here's how you do this particular Arby's in your lesson, whether that's with teachers, APs, or principles pulling them together. And then we obviously throughout the year in our calendar as well as after school and Saturday sessions offer additional professional learning where teachers can come learn and hone their craft in
159those areas. I love that, Dr. Sy. Um I mean for me it's you know Dr. Lil and I always make jokes about that it's a yes and um so all of those things are really important and it is the application of said professional learning that has to begin to show up in in the daily instruction. Um and so that comes with clarity around what the expectation is around the application of said learning. Um, again, I want to always take us back to student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. And so, we've got to get really clear as a system on what the expectations are in terms of curriculum implementation, right? And and we can take that concept. It is more than just implementing. It is actually about the level of depth that students are
160exposed to every single day. Like I think Dr. just talked about it a bit where we talk about you know moving from procedural to conceptual in math say for example. Well we also as a system have to assess whether students know procedural before we just only do conceptual. So we've got to create the systems and structures through an instructional framework which you guys will see us come back with and at in August and we will share in leadership academy with our principles around how we are spending those instructional minutes in a classroom because we've got to get really clear on how much direct instruction kids have to get in order to make sure that they understand the procedural and the conceptual and that we measure it. And what do we do after students are measured
161and it isn't grasped? Because again, as you saw in other presentations, we've got wind time, we've got quest time, we've got tutoring after school, we've got, you know, all kinds of recovery spaces. Well, again, if we are not spending those instructional minutes on the very areas where kids are showing deficiencies, then we are just wasting instructional minutes. And so we've got to get more prescriptive about what happens during those instructional minutes so that we are actually seeing kids get better and stronger at the skills whether they are conceptual or procedural and then how they apply them so that they then are able to demonstrate their learning not just through said implementation of curriculum but through their work through projects through assessments. ments and that it then shows up not only in map but in STAR.
162And so we again I always go back to what do we need to do first. We have to create those systems and those structures and those supports for our educators. And lastly that clarity around expectations as we support them as we're asking them to do new things. Right? We all acknowledge that we're asking them to do new things. So how do we support them to do that? Thank you, Dr. Sorenson. Any other members of the board? I'd just like to say thank you, Dr. Sorenson, um for clarifying that and then to set expectations for parents as well, so that they're aware of those deficiencies and they can help guide and be part of, you know, the student success. Yeah, I I thank you so much for saying that um board member Cha and I say
163that also about your question about attendance. Um, part of that is is number one, yes, on the school side, very much in terms of are our campuses notifying our parents because again, I'm a mom of a high school kid and if my child was missing 33% of her time or his time and I didn't know and the school wasn't notifying me and I wasn't being called in and you know, our district wasn't implementing the policy, you know, our attendance procedures and policies as said like as a parent and we heard that during strategic planning like how are the schools engaging our families from that very first absence, right? Because then we can actually hold our parents as partners in fixing the issue. But when we are not partnering with our parents to support our student
164outcomes, we have to look at ourselves first. So, thank you for that question. Yeah, that's certainly alarming, you know, and so um being able to convey that message to our parents how important that is. You know, I'm sure you have a team there that's going to be putting this information out there. But, you know, I always learn things from your presentations, Dr. Little, and that's something that's concerning to us is the number of absences and the schools that are experiencing that. So, thank you for the report. Seeing that there's no other questions, we appreciate your your report your your presentation. Next will be our chief of staff, Joseph. Um Joseph will be covering our last item on agenda item number nine, LSAR governance time use tracker report. Joseph, thank you, Mr. Board President, members of
165the board, Dr. Sorenson, Laoya ISD community in the audience and watching at home. Um I'm pleased to bring you our Lonear governance time use tracker report for our June 4th meeting. Um, student outcome change don't change until adult behaviors change. I think that's probably sixth or seventh time you might have heard this this meeting. Uh, for anybody is that was with us with principles today. Um, the tagline was used probably no fewer than 20 times during the course of the day. Um, it was a big part of what we were doing with principles today. Um, and so for members of the community at home, where does that come from? Um well that comes from our Lonear governance work. Uh it's a and LSG is a continuous improvement model for our for our governing teams with
166our board and superintendent who chose choose to f focus intensely and unapologetically on only one primary objective and that is improving student outcomes. Um, so as a part of our LSG work, we measure how we spend our time in board meetings um and how much time is spent on student outcomes versus um adult outcomes um and other metrics aligned with the um the framework pillars. So how did we do last meeting? We had a relatively short um board meeting at 122 minutes length. Um much thanks for the efficiency of the close session time. Um and of that 122 minutes um 112 uh were spent in total on student outcomes and adult outcomes with 93 of those minutes spent on um student outcomes specifically. So um items that uh that logged time were our uh policy
167update a local update, our GPM's presentation around map growth reading um and of course our LSG tracker report. Um so this I'm pleased that this is our our second report um in in so many meetings um where we have exceeded the um 50% of our time spent on student outcomes marker. Um and I think in in looking at the meetings ahead um and uh we're going it's going to be increasingly important that we maintain um this ratio of times dedicated to student outcomes. So with that I'll take any questions the board has. Members of the board any questions for Joseph? Joseph we appreciate the fact that you do that and so this for us I I always look forward to this portion of our of our meetings and Marcy and I always look at each
168other. So, great news. So, thank you very much, Joseph. Thank you, sir. All right, seeing that we don't have any other questions for Joseph, our next presenter is Dr. Bara. Dr. Baretta will be covering a Texas Education. She's our Texas Education Agency conservator and she'll be giving us a report. Dr. I wanted to mention as part of the LSG tracker, we've worked really hard in working together as a team and also working with the agency to fight for the time that we spend talking about everything that's connected to student outcomes. As an example, budget, normally we wouldn't count that time, but how did she present her uh how did she present the hearing? How did she present the last time when she talked about the budget? The first most important thing is student outcomes. So
169everything is connected to student outcomes in the vision. Um also Jamie made that connection as well when she talked about her compensation report. What are we doing? We want to make sure that we compensate staff namely principles right now um that in alignment with student achievement and so when we can make those connections and we do and we will then we can count those minutes towards discussing student outcomes. So I thank the team very much for working with me on that um and the agency as well. So, moving to the uh monitoring report for the conservator. I don't want to take a lot of your time. The last time we really went through all the sections of the report, but I do want to call your attention to the second exit criteria. And under exit
170criteria 2, it is regarding business and finance. So it looks different now because we have added GPMs for um for those uh for that exit for that exit criteria. So basically we have three of them. One of them is about revising, updating um and creating 95% of the systems and processes recommended in the financial process and controls focus area in the audit compared to 0% implementation in May of 2025. The audit that La Hoya received gave a lot of information on things that needed to be uh fixed uh or implemented and they gave six months a year and then um and then a year after that. So that's basically how we organized um these targets. The second one is around enhancing, strengthening and evaluating the financial management capacity of the district by implementing 95% of
171those recommendations as compared to 0% in May of 2025. Again, when we received this audit, none of those things were being done. Um, but as you see in this report, the work has already begun. The final one is about enhancing, strengthening and evaluating the financial management capacity of the district by implementing 95% of the recommendations in this particular focus area. Again, compared to 0% in May, if you look at the latter portion of the report after the directives at the bottom, um it's tiny tiny print and I apologize. I sent an email to you guys um with this report so you can really open up all of those uh screens to see those. But all of these things are exactly what was in the audit. There are a lot but I am telling you she's
172already they are already getting started and getting some of these things done and they will get them done. I wanted to say that I was really proud of priority five because in that priority all of those areas were on track and most of those were regarding uh transparency you know financial transparency um and all of that. So, I look forward to updating this plan every month. And in our process, I meet with the uh Chief Crespbow and we talk about each area. Okay, where are we on this? Where are we done? And it's so I'm not asking anyone to do any extra work. This is the work that we're doing. So, we're just tracking it and monitoring it. And my my reason for putting it in my report is so that you can see the
173work that's being done as we move along. And so as we move into July, I'll be bringing you the final exit criteria, GPMs and activities. And this is going to be for academics. Um I spent the day today with the entire team. I got here this morning for the entire principal meeting and I can tell you that I was of course very pleased that everyone knows about that tagline and it's not a tagline. When people actually use it to describe how they feel, where where their thoughts are, where their focus is, they really believe it. And so I was thrilled when one particular principal said, "Student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change." And that adult behavior change begins with me. I have been wanting to cry all day long. Just really really thoughtful reflections
174on the part of the team, on the part of uh the principles and and on the part of Superintendent Sorenson. Um so does anyone have any questions? on the monitoring report in front of you. Members of the board, any questions for Dr. Ba? No questions, but looking forward to next month. What was that? I said no questions, but looking forward to next month. Thank you. I have a question for you, Dr. Ba. Is this information on the La Hoya website? Yes, it is. It is posted if you go to the board page. It's at the very bottom of all the different things you LSG components. If you go to LSG, it's at the very bottom. Okay. So the public can see progress as well. Great. Thank you. I appreciate that. Any other members of the
175board have any questions for Dr. Bono? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you again for making today's meeting. All right, ladies and gentlemen, the next agenda item on that we have to cover is going to be our consent agenda items. Do I have a motion? I move to approve consent agenda. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Motion carries. Okay. Next item on the agenda will be our close session. The close session will be for the purposes authorized by the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code sections 551.001, 551.071, 551.072, 551.074, 551.076, 076 551 551.129 and 551.0821 concerning and any on all purposes permitted by the act including but not limited to the sections and purposes listed below. Ladies and gentlemen, it is exactly
1768:20 p.m. We are now in close session. Sorry. We're off the Yeah, me too. All right, ladies and gentlemen, we are back from close session. It is 9:19 p.m. Item 14.1, approval of painting services and floor replacement at Gar Elementary. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.1. Do I have a second? I move to approve. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item is 14.2. Approval of executive coaching and leadership development support proposal with ILO group through consulting services RFP. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.2. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Um I failed to mention u one of our board members was feeling ill
177so he stepped out. So for the record, if we can just state that Dr. Carlos Marggo is not part of these voting on these particular agenda items. Next item on the agenda is 14.3 approval of proposal for iPads for the district and ACE refresh. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.3. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. 14.4. Approval of SAIS program implementation essentials and professional development through purchasing cooperative. Do I have a motion? I move to approve 14.4. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. All opposed. Motion carries. Item 14.5, approval of suit to support MTSS cultural and climate and data analytics through purchasing cooperative. Do I
178have a motion? I move to approve item 14.5. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. 14.6 approval of school kit literacy coaching plan 6 through 12 through consultant services RFP. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.6. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose. Motion carries. Item 14.7, approval of Skyward annual license fee and software support. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.7. Do I have a second? I second. All in favor signify by saying I. All opposed. Motion carries. Item 14.8, approval of phase 2, financial audit services, RFQ number 2025-12. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.8. Do
179I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Agenda item 14.9, approval of allocation of 2026 assessments for La Hoy Independent School District. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.9. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 14.10. Approve adoption of the proposed 2025 2026 budgets for the general fund, debt services fund, and child nutrition fund. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.10. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Item 1411 or I should say 14.11 approval of 2025 2026 compensation plan. Do I have
180a motion? I move to approve item 14.1. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose. Congratulations everyone. Next item on the agenda is 14.12. Consider and take possible action to withdraw proposed non-renewal of employment contract of teacher beatatric Estrada. Do I have a motion? I move to approve withdrawal proposed non-renewal of employment contract of teacher Beatrice Estrada. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. All right, ladies and gentlemen, last item on the agenda would be um 14.3 correction for 14.13. Consider and take possible action to propose mid-contract termination of teacher employment contract for good cause. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 14.13. Do I have a second?
181I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Item 15 is the calendar. July 1st through the 11th, 2025, central administration office close for the summer break. Uh July 30th, 2025, regular school board meeting. Uh agenda item 16, uh superintendent or board member remarks. Dr. Sorenson, you may proceed. Thank you, sir. Um, two things and I'll really just do two things this time because you know for me it always turns into 10. Um, first and foremost um, I really do want to thank the board. Um, your support for the budget and the compensation plan. I mean there's Brenda, she's clapping. Um but um your support for the budget and the compensation plan really does demonstrate your commitment to our employees and to um our hardworking, dedicated staff members
182across the district um and also to my cabinet who work tirelessly to get this across the finish line. But um really um I'm going to say this out loud. Um, I am really proud to be able to do this for our employees. Um, at this level, um, one of the few districts across the valley right now doing this for our employees. And so I really do want to point that out, but it would not be able to be done without your support. And so board, um, thank you so much. Um, it really means a lot not only to me, but I am certain to our employees. Um, so thank you. And then two, as this is our last board meeting for this school year, um right um I do really just want to always pause
183and take a moment to just express gratitude. I mean, we've gotten a lot done this year um as a board um as a district and as a family. And you know, that means the La Hoya ISD family. And so, you know, board meetings sometimes, you know, are really exciting, but um it really is a demonstration of all the work and the dedication and the pride and the joy that exists in this district every single day and every single employee. And as you reflect on the year's journey, you just can at this moment take a step back and express gratitude. express gratitude for the entire district. It's been a long year, but a year full of just amazingness in every space that we we could have gone through. Tough times, too, but also lots of amazingness.
184And so, I look forward very much to 2526, the launch of our strategic plan, and our continued commitment to student success. Thank you, Marcy. Do members of the board have anything to say? Board member Chaw. Um, yes. I too want to express gratitude. You know, this has been an emotional meeting as from our cabinet, from our community members, and you know, as a board, as a team, we have tremendous goals and even greater expectations. And we have set a balanced budget. We have um we are aligned and we have been transparent you know so great success all around and we've made remarkable strides this year and it's the middle of the year you know so we only have room to grow. Um again thank you for accepting the challenge. It it truly is a challenge
185and all the while we maintain our focus as student outcomes. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Boricho member. Any other members like to say anything? Sure. I want to say something. I just want to commend everyone. Uh Dr. Sson, thank you. Uh our our cabinet, everyone, administration staff, everyone that's been putting in the hard work this year, and it's been amazing. It's been a lot of work, a lot of changes. And I hope that the community and the people see that that it's not just the focus on on the change that we're trying to do, but we're trying to do it for our students and for the outcome of our kids. And uh I think that's number one. And I think this next year, there's a lot of work to be done as well.
186And I think us working together and and knowing what's going to happen, um I think we're going to come together and and make things happen for our students. So I I thank you. Thank you for everything that you've done this year. It's been an amazing year. There's been so much accomplishments, so many accolades that have happened and I I'm very proud to be here for the fact that, you know, this is my school and and this is La Hoya is where I come from and I'm very very proud and I thank you. Thank you so much everyone that's put in the work. Thank you. Any other board members? Well, before we close, I'd just like to say something really quick. So earlier today, somebody had mentioned being a challenge and I think it might have
187been from one of our uh those that has signed up for public comment and uh it has been a challenge. It's been a challenge and I think we were all overwhelmed. We've been overwhelmed and it's been a learning experience for all of us. I mean it really has and I think about those two young men earlier uh that were recognized. I I I think to myself, you know, are we you know am I in the right spot? Am I in the right spot by doing this? because nobody teaches you how to be a board member, right? Nobody, you don't go to class to be a board member. But as I saw those two young men and I see the proud fathers of both of them hugging their wives and the kids, you know, you you
188start to think, God, I think uh I think we're doing the right thing. You know, I think we're doing the right thing. And and I think that's what it's all about. Because sometimes I go home and I think to myself, God, did are we doing the right thing? And when I pray at night, I always say, and you know, just give me the wisdom to make the right decisions for a school that I um that I care so much about. And I want to I want to thank our board members um for acknowledging the hard work of our teachers and not just our teachers, but support staff and our bus drivers and the people that cook our meals and, you know, our first line of defense for our students. They're all teachers regardless if they
189have a teaching certificate or not. I've informed many people that everyone's a teacher here on this campus. Marcy, I know people thank you all the time for the great work that you do, but I want to take this opportunity to thank your your administrative staff who do amazing work. I mean, you guys are amazing. I mean, people need to acknowledge that. And and you all, you know, you guys do great work. Joseph, I mean, you guys are some of the smartest people we know. And this is new to us. This isn't our profession. We come in here with what we know and and we do we try to make the best decisions that we can with what's given to us. And you you you equipped us well. You equipped us well to do the job
190that we do. And and we're not just representing the people that are here from the DAS. We represent a school district made of thousands of students, thousands of employees that look up to us and not in a way of respect, but more like of what we can do to help them. And and I tell you, when we were in Austin this past couple of days, I mean, it was amazing that, you know, a school district like La Hoya was outshining all these other schools. And I' and I've told Marcy and I've told my board, we will never talk bad about another school district. We show it. You know, Walter Payton once said that good people, if you're good at something, you'll tell others. But if you're great, others will tell you. It's true. That's the
191way we are. People are telling us that we're doing good things. We're not perfect, but we've only been here for 18 months, right, Chief? I mean, we still got our training wheels going, you know, but we take a lot of pride in where we go. And so, like you, Marcy, I mean, we're accountable as well. And there's not a day that goes by that I don't think about not only the the work that we have ahead of us, but what's in the best interest of our students. And let me tell you, it was worth every penny. I mean, at worth every every minute that I spend on the weekends or at night or whenever I have free time when I see these two gentlemen that were surrounded by their families and acknowledged for the great
192work that they did and how they represented this school district. Well, so thank you all. I thought I would take this opportunity to share that with you. So, if I don't have anything else that anybody would like to add, I want to add uh to what you were saying pretty much second um what he was talking about where you know he went to they went to the summit this past week uh and we're the only school south of San Antonio or school district south of San Antonio. Um but a couple about a month ago I went to the region one school board uh meeting and I was pleased to find out that we are advanced or pretty much already implementing things that our other districts surrounding districts are learning. So it was fulfilling for me
193to know and understand how we're all acting as a group and we're all pretty much being ahead of the ball. Thank you. Yeah, Dr. Nundis, she said it best. I mean, and again, we've been instructed that we will never say anything bad about anyone that's either sat in the seats that we're in or any other school districts. Uh we like to poke fun at the other school districts. You know, when we when they say, uh uh what are you guys doing this weekend? Oh, I'm sorry. We're going to a we have a baseball game we got to go to. I'm sorry if you're staying at home. And we pick it fun. But at the end of the day, we all celebrate the success of all the students of South Texas. So, ladies and gentlemen, have
194a good night. Again, we very are much appreciated and uh to the teachers and the hard workers of La Hoya, congratulations and welld deserved. Do I have a motion to adjourn? I move to adjourn this meeting at 9:34. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. We are journed.