001[Music] Good evening everyone. I hereby call this meeting to order. It's 6 p.m. Next item on the agenda is roll call. If I could have you uh state that you're here. To my right. Present. Carlos Marggo present. Anita Chavez, present. Alisa Pñena, present. Rosala Hernandez, present. Selen Gomez Jr. present. Great. We have everyone here and we have quorum. Next item on the agenda, ladies and gentlemen, if you're able to do so, it's our pledge of allegiance. Please stand and face the flag. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Thank you. You may be seated. Next item on the agenda is staff recognition. Uh I am going to ask Dr. Rosalo Hernandez
002and Mr. Clos Gomez, board member, if you could stand in front for uh the recognition, the recognition of La Hoya ISD being named a 2025 NAM BCME district. I'd like to ask Ruben Adam, fine arts director, to approach the podium for the presentation. Mr. Adamame, nice to see you again, sir. Good evening, Dr. Sorenson, President Alvarez, esteemed members of the La Hoya ISD school board, district administration, and La Hoya ISD family. Former President Gerald Forer once said, "Music education opens doors that help children pass from school into the world around them. a world of work, culture, intellectual activity, and human involvement. It is my privilege to share a remarkable accomplishment that reflects the heart and soul of our school district's dedication to student success and the arts. Each year, the National Association of Music Merchants,
003recognizes school districts across the United States through its best communities for music education designation. This national recognition honors districts that demonstrate outstanding commitment and support for music education through their collaborative efforts of teachers, administrators, parents, students, and community leaders. I am incredibly proud to announce that for the eighth consecutive year, La Hoya ISD has once again been named a NAM Best Communities for Music Education School District. Everyone deserves a round of applause. This honor is not given lightly. It speaks volumes about who we are as a district. It reflects the consistent and intentional investment made by our leadership to ensure that every child, regardless of background or circumstance, has access to highquality music instruction. It affirms the belief that music is not an extra but a muchneeded part of a well-rounded education. One that cultivates
004creativity, discipline, collaboration, and emotional expression. This recognition is a result of a shared vision. A vision brought to life every day by the dedicated efforts of all our music teachers who pour their hearts into inspiring students. by our campus leaders who create environments where the arts can thrive. By our passionate parents and families who advocate for the value of music in their children's lives and by our district leadership who continue to champion the importance of fine arts in our educational mission. Tonight I extend my heartfelt congratulations to our superintendent of schools Dr. Marcy Sorenson al our school board president Mr. to Julian Alvarez, the La Hoya ISD board of trustees, our district and campus administrators, and most especially to all our La Hoya ISD music teachers and students who are the living proof of why
005this recognition matters. You are the reason La Hoya ISD continues to shine on the national stage. Your dedication, your passion, and your belief in the transformative power of music continue to make a profound difference in the lives of our students and in the spirit of our community. Thank you and congratulations to everyone who made this recognition possible. Let us continue to lead with music, inspire with purpose, and shape the future of La Hoya ISD through the arts. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mr. So, if you all can please come up and take a picture with the plaque. Oh, we'd be honored. Yes. Dr. Come on down. Great job. Congratulations. [Applause] That's it. Again, thank you, Mr. Dame and for uh the recognition and uh again thank you Mr. Samura for joining us. Um does
006anyone have anything to add to uh the recognition? I know we have a lot of people here on the that serve on the board that are particularly very interested in the fine arts. I just want to say congratulations. It's an honor to be me as an alumni as in the band. Um it's just very proud that they've done it for the past eight years and hopefully we continue doing it for the next 100 years. Right. Thank you very much. Any other members of the board like to add anything? I just would like to of course congratulate all of our educators, our music educators for their incredible dedication. Um it not only shows up every single day in the classroom, but outside the classroom, how much time and energy and love they pour into the work
007that they do. um our families, our students. I mean, they just show up um and just give a 100% all the time. But I would be remiss if I did not also just really thank the two of you um Dr. Zamora and Mr. Odame for your leadership in this area. Your leadership across our district um is just outstanding. And so we don't get this type of recognition without your leadership and without your vision. So thank you so much for the work that you do. Well said, Marcy. All right. I uh next item on the agenda is item 4.2, recognition of Loy ISD executive cabinet selection to Harvard University's public education leadership project. Joseph, yes. Good evening, Mr. Board President, members of the board, Dr. Sornson, La Hoya ISD community at home watching us. Um, every
008day as an executive leadership team, we aspire to leadership excellence. We aspire to be models of leadership excellence. So, it's with great pride and enthusiasm and in that spirit that we recognize two truly exceptional honors bestowed upon our district. First, we're thrilled to announce that the La Hoya ISD executive cabinet has been selected to participate in the public education leadership project or PELP. um a prestigious initiative jointly led by Harvard Business School and the Harvard Graduate School of Education. For over 20 years, PELP has brought together leadership teams from large school districts across the country to strengthen their strategic management and leadership capabilities. Each summer, only 12 district teams are invited to the Harvard campus for a transformative 5-day summer institute. During the experience, our executive cabinet will engage in classroom instruction from worldrenowned faculty
009at Harvard Business School at the Har, excuse me, Harvard Graduate School of Education and the Kennedy School of Government. We'll facil be facilitated in team sessions to collaborate, problem solve, interdist sharing to learn from peer districts, and we'll have time to reflect and innovate as a team. This selection is a powerful affirmation of the leadership, vision, and commitment that define La Hoya ISD. We are proud to see our executive cabinet recognized on the national stage and look forward to the insights and strategies that we'll bring back to our community. If you would please join us in congratulating our executive leadership team on this prestigious selection. Congratulations. Wow, what an honor. What an honor. Joseph, I'm curious, what other schools were selected or this districts? You said there were 12. Yes. Um I don't know them
010all off the top of my head. I know that um Cleveland is one of the districts that's going. Um I know that there is a district in uh Mississippi that is going. Um I believe that we are the only district in Texas. Super nice. That is goingit. So yes, we're very excited. We're thrilled. Um and this for me um just affirms our commitment to the strategic plan. Um as leadership excellence um is where we are committed in our strategic plan. And so each one of us had to select like a problem of practice. And so we will be digging into leadership and how to continue to strengthen our our campus leaders um as we work with um Harvard Business and Harvard Graduate School so that we can continue to pour into our principles. And so
011I do want to recognize that in in addition to our executive cabinet um some folks from um academics and school leadership will be joining us. And so, um, Nidia Ortiz and, um, Jodia Adair will also be joining us, um, as executive directors of school leadership, um, to learn with us as we take this endeavor. Oh, how exciting. Congratulations to all of you. What do all you well deserve recognition? I heard Carlos Marggo said he wanted to go and carry luggage, right, Carlos? About the closest we'll ever get to Harvard. Congratulations to all of you. What a well recognized um acknowledgement. So, and especially when when we can say that it's not only uh we're representing South Texas, but we're representing this great state of ours. So, Joseph, thank you for the great news. Next item
012on the agenda, Joseph, I know you're going to remain there. It's um recognition of chief academics and leader school leadership selection to the TEA's commissioner's chief academic officer council. Joseph Joseph. So, I'm I'm I'm proud to share um and announce the uh the selection of our very own Chief of Academics and School Leadership, Dr. Derek Little, to the uh Texas Education Agency's Commissioners Chief Academic Officer Council. This appointment is a testament to the unwavering dedication, visionary leadership, and tireless commitment to the ACT to academic excellent Dr. Little has demonstrated throughout his career and his service to La Hoya ISD. His voice will now help shape education policy and an innovation at the state level, representing not only our district, but also the aspirations of students and educators across Texas. This honor reflects the strength of
013our of our programs, the passion of our educators, and the collaborative spirit that defines La Hoya ISD. We are proud to see our district's leadership recognized on such a distinguished platform. Please join me in recognizing Dr. a little on his appointment. Congratulations. Wow, what an exciting day. What an exciting day for us today. Would you like to say anything? Yeah. So, I would like to add um that there are only 10 um chief academic officers from across the district that um are asked to join this very prestigious um commissioners, chief academic officer council. Um, and so, um, I was asked as a superintendent, um, if it was okay, right? Imagine the commissioner's office asking me if it was okay. Um, um, sure, absolutely. Um, if Dr. Little could be recommended to this prestigious council. Um,
014and so, of course, I'm more than happy to recommend him to the council. And so, not only does this speak volumes to his academic um excellence and his dedication to his craft, but it also demonstrates the work that we're doing here in La Hoya ISD. And so, I am really excited not only to be recognized as a district doing great academic work um but also to have Dr. Little represent us um on this statewide commissioner's council. So, thank you, Derek, for for leading us in this endeavor and for representing us statewide. Congratulations, Dr. Little. Congratulations. Wow. What's so exciting, Joseph, is that we'll have representation nationally and the previous agenda item that you brought up and then of course at the state level. So, congratulations to everyone. I'm certainly a team effort, but Marcy, congratulations
015to you and and your leadership. Next item on the agenda is agenda item number five. It's the La Hoya ISD Centennial Committee. And I understand that there will be no presentation tonight from the Centennial Committee and that we can move on to agenda item number six. Agenda item number six is public comment. Again, if anyone has signed up, we will ask that you uh speak for three minutes. Your remarks will be 3 minutes and then of course after 3 minutes um our our vice president will inform you and if your name is called up by our secretary Miss Pena school board member Miss Pena will call you up and uh we will ask you to identify yourself and we have anybody that signed up for public comment tonight. We do not have any public comments
016for tonight. Okay. Seeing that we don't have any we will be moving over to the next agenda item which is the Lonear governance. This is going to be done by our very own Dr. little our education audit findings. All right. Good evening. Thank you, board president and superintendent and board and community. We have talked about this topic for quite some time in really needing to unpack what's happening in special education in La Hoya ISD. We shared several months ago that we were kicking off a really uh deep audit and intensive look at where we are as a district. So really happy to come tonight and share what those findings are from that special education audit and as important is sharing what we're going to do in response. So what the recommendations are and what this
017work looks like uh for the district and for the community in the coming years. So we'll start here just with a broad executive summary to sort of remind us what we're talking about. uh this evening and the first is a quick reminder on why we even set down this path. We're going to go through this in more detail in just a little bit, but we've shared data throughout the year as we looked at our Lonear governance goals and GPMs that clearly shows that students receiving special education services in La Hoya ISD are not where they need to be academically and developmentally. And we've got to do that improvement work at the system level and at the classroom level to better support our students. So that really uh prompted a need to to dig deeper into
018this along with lots of feedback that we've heard over time from parents and from educators on how we need to get better in this space. The audit looked deeply in a number of areas uh that we will go through more in detail as we go along, but it really helped us think about what happens before a student is ever even in special education, what their services and support looks like once they're in special education, and then really what we're seeing as an absence of of success right now with students no longer needing special education services. So it looked at all of those parts uh of that continuum and process really focused and what's here in red in the sort of lower half of the slide is a compelling vision for us moving forward. Like we
019need to be and we want to be in La Hoya ISD the best possible place for a student with special needs to be educated and to be supported and to be loved and to grow. And so as we go through these findings and recommendations, know that it is in service of that spirit and ultimately achieving our vision, educational excellence, the right of every student. And the right of every student can't be true if it doesn't include students in special ed. And so this audit is really central to all of our work in La Hoya ISD and certainly for some of our most vulnerable students who need us the most to deliver highquality support, care, and services every day. As we go about that work, we will focus on six broad priorities. You see those listed
020really briefly here. We're going to go through each of those in a bit more detail, but again, broadly, it's looking at what we're doing before students ever enter special education, what we're doing on the general education side, how we're responding to concerns and needs of students. That's what this MTSS bucket is really about. And then once a student is referred and identified for special education to make sure that they're getting truly the individualized support and care that they need, that touches on our datadriven IEPs and the continuum of services along with strategic staffing, ensuring we got the right people in the right places based on the student needs that we have while being super efficient and productive with the resources that we have available uh in the district. And all the while, and you've heard
021us say this all year, in terms of professional learning, like each day, trying to ensure that we're doing the best we can for the educators who are in classrooms and who are leading school buildings, that we're building their capacity and developing them to their best potential. And we can never ignore the fact that in all of what we do, families are critical. In special education, they're even more critical. like we've got to have that family perspective, that family partnership, that shared mission in supporting that individual student because it truly does take us all working together to get back to that vision that we've laid out. So, we are now going to unpack a little bit of how we went about this work. We partnered with an organization called Bellweather Education Partners. They were our audit
022um thirdparty entity. They spent a lot of time with us in our district and talking to a lot of stakeholders as well. They had focus groups and conversations with families, with teachers, with school leaders, central staff uh members. They talked to some students as well, really trying to look at this from every angle possible and get as much feedback into what's happening in La Hoya ISD uh as much as possible. They also spent time in schools and in classrooms. So, school visits were a part of this look uh in the audit in addition to examining a lot of uh paperwork, IEPs, data, like scrubbing all of what we have in our infrastructure as well as talking to our stakeholders. And all of that sits, as I mentioned a minute ago, in in context of our
023Lonear governance goals. Each one of these goals that you approved back in the fall includes every student in the district that's relevant to that goal. So if we look at goal one for example in third grade reading for us to get from 42 to 53% it's going to take all of our students showing growth and improvement. We did not write these goals and say hey it's for everybody except special education. They're in there and you know when we come provide those updates. We're also showing data that lays out how special education students are doing in relation to the goal and in relation to general education peers. So, as we go through the rest of the presentation tonight, we wanted you and the community just to know that it really is central to our path to
024excellence. It's central to achieving each of these targets for the goals as well as for the goal progress measures. Again, regardless of whether we're talking about a prek3 student or a student in 12th grade getting ready to graduate on Sunday, like special education has a role to play in that journey and in that trajectory. The other thing, and you'll hear more from the superintendent on this in the next presentation, but it is explicitly one of the constraints that is being proposed to you. Constraint number two says that the superintendent is not going to allow harm to children with disabilities. And we will share with you in this presentation and in the next one, two constraint progress measures that will help us actually keep our eyes on that and monitor this closely and be transparent about
025our work and our progress. So, let's dig in. We're going to look at the key findings across five areas uh and then we will get into the recommendations. So the five broad areas that we really dug into were student outcomes. Obviously, how are students doing if they're in special education? How are special education students doing in relation to students in the general education setting and where does that uh leave room for improvement? You can't talk about student outcomes without also talking about academics and what's happening with instruction and what's happening in the classroom in the building every day. Uh so we're going to take a deep look at that. Similarly, what surrounds the classroom in the school in terms of school and family engagement is super important and how families are seen or not seen
026sometimes as real partners in this work. How their voice is included or sometimes not included in key decisions about what's happening with their student. So that that was the third key pillar examined here. And then leadership and talent is both looking at what we're doing at the central office level and how this plays out at campuses. And then operations and infrastructure is really how we're running the program. So think about like back office supports and functions that include IT infrastructure all the way to business and finance decisions related to special education. So we'll begin with student outcomes. Certainly the most important thing that we continue to focus on every day. Um each of these slides is laid out in a similar way. It just sort of gives you highlights of those findings in tonight's presentation
027really for the community to know. We have some appendix slides in there as well which give more data and more information in some of these areas if folks want to look at that more deeply. But the main story here with student outcomes is we got a long way to go for students receiving special education services. Less than a quarter of our students in special education are meeting on grade level standards. So when we're presenting about students that meets who are above on STAR, we're looking at students who are meeting that grade level equivalency on MAP, you know, it's only a quarter or less of students in sped who are often included in those outcomes. And that's simply not acceptable. That's certainly not what any parent of a student with special education wants. Uh and that's
028not what our students need to continue to be successful. This is true along the entire continuum of our pre-K12 system. As well as we look at high school students, we see that college career military readiness rates are much lower for our students in special education. This is a a striking statistic. Fewer than 5% of our special ed students actually have graduated college ready historically in La Hoya ISD with the data we looked at over the past few years. So, we got a lot of work to do to make sure that just because you're diagnosed as and identified as a student with special needs, that does not relegate you to lesser opportunities and less than outcomes. And part of that starts with what we see on the academic side and in the classroom. The first thing
029here is really important and I think it's it's a challenge to me and certainly to our team here in the central office. One of the things that Belleather found is they felt that we had a compelling desire and vision for the future of where this work could go. But when they went out and talked to campus leaders or they talked to families, it has not permeated more broadly throughout the district yet. So that's real challenge to us is to to make sure that ultimately the entire community holds a shared vision for what excellence looks like and what excellence in special education looks like. Uh specifically, part of this relates to how we support our educators in the classrooms and in schools. You're going to hear this several times tonight, but how we build professional capacity
030and how we do more professional learning, not only for deep technical related skills in special education, but equally importantly, how special educators and general educators are actually working together in service of students. um that showed up a number of ways in the audit, including in this concept of co-eing. So, if I'm in a fourth grade classroom, I've got the fourth grade teacher working with students and I may have three special education students in that classroom. Special education teacher ideally comes into that space and it is a seamless partnership and sort of dance between the teachers and the students. That's not what we have as reality right now in La Hoya ISD, but that is what we are working towards because that's what the research shows is best for the students and that is the the
031evidence-based practice um that we've got to to continue to put in place in the district. The other thing I'll just call out here, and this will come up again later, but it'll it'll be a consistent theme is this next to last bullet on the quality and accuracy of IEPs. First is an acronym reminder here. IEPs are individualized education plans. So, every student served in special education has a document called an IEP which lays out the specific um needs that that student has, the goals that they are working towards, and the services that they're receiving to help them achieve those goals. As we looked across all of our IEPs in the district, we did not find consistent quality in what went into those critical pieces of how we're going to serve those students. Uh we heard
032this, the superintendent heard it over and over again in the strategic planning town halls from parents is that it was like a copy paste job. So my IEP and another student's IEP might look and read the same way. uh that is not an inherent fault in our educators and our diagnosticians. They are doing a lot of work and doing the best they can. But part of what we found even this year is they needed to be updated on how best to approach that work and receive some new training. But that's a key piece of what we have to focus on moving forward. I'll talk about the continuum services a little bit more, but that's really sort of where students are placed. So, are they in a general education classroom all day or are they in
033a specialized classroom that only has special education students in it all day or some mix of the two? And it's how students are served. So, how many uh minutes is that special education teacher working with me throughout the day? So, we think about placement and services as making up that continuum of services. and La Hoya ISD has really in some ways had an antiquated approach to this in the district that is not as up-to-date with research and evidence-based practices for special education students. Board President, can I interject? Yes, please. So, um I want to go back for one quick second um to bullet um around IEPs. Um I really appreciate you really lifting that up um Dr. a little because IEP and I appreciate you breaking that down. Individualized education plan. I I don't want
034to underscore what what that document really is and the importance of that document. That is the road map. That is the blueprint that really does outline what the student needs in order to be successful academically, social, emotionally, behaviorally, whatever the disability is. And so when we think about, you know, a couple of slides pri prior, you know, what the outcomes are for students, if we don't have consistent quality road maps, blueprints on what students need in order to be successful, accommodations, modifications, instructional practices, approaches to meet the needs of their said disability. We're not going to get them to grow in a way that they need to grow in the least restrictive environment, which again is in alignment with IDA and LRE. Again, least restrictive environment. And so we've really got to lean in as
035a system and really support not only our diagnosticians and our educators, both our special education educators, but our general education educators to really sit down and work together to create quality IEPs so that our students are supported in the least restrictive environment and receiving the the highest quality tier one, tier two, or tier three instructional practices so that they can grow academically, behaviorally, social, emotionally, whatever it is their disability is, so that we can then start to see outcomes change. Um because again, that IEP is really that students individual roadmap um for whatever their disability is. And so you'll see us really lean in on that when we talk about the superintendence constraints because that is an area where we're talking about each individual student. Thank you Dr. Sorenson. So let's look at third area
036here of focus which is culture and family engagement. And big takeaway here is we have to part of what the superintendent was just saying, we have not focused on inclusivity in the way that we need to. Unfortunately, when we talk about special education, there's like lots of words and acronyms that are unique to that space. I will do it my best job to remember to call those out uh along the way, but certainly board feel free to ask if it's not clear. Inclusiveness in this context means that we are serving special education students in a traditional classroom setting as often as possible. So you walk in, I'll use the same fourth grade classroom. You walk into a fourth grade classroom, you may not know which students are are general education and which are special education.
037And that's wonderful even though the special education student is receiving additional supports and services based on that IEP. That's an inclusive setting. The opposite of inclusive is a restrictive setting where I'm in my own classroom with a few kids all day every day and we don't ever have the exposure or the opportunity uh to work or learn alongside our general education peers. Super clear research over decades to show that inclusiveness is really the only way to drive positive outcomes for the vast majority of students in special education settings. The part of that that we've really got to work on when we think about school culture goes back to that professional learning. If I'm that fourth grade teacher and I'm a general education teacher, there is actually a chance that I never receive special education training
038while I was becoming a teacher. If I took an alternate certification path to becoming a teacher, I can almost guarantee you I never learned anything about how to support students with special needs. So we as a district, other districts have to do work to really help them understand how best to reach each of these students, how to support them academically, but also ways that we need to support behaviorally and with social emotional development as well. So that's part of our charge, and you'll see that in the recommendations moving forward. The other thing that's really important there, and this is one of the superintendent's favorite things to talk about when it comes to to our work in special education, but that fourth grade teacher, because they may not know that every child sometimes shows up differently
039in a special education context or before they're ever even in special education, I'm still just struggling to learn those phone names that Miss Loausano talks a lot about. I may not need special education at all. But what we've seen in this district and what the audit really helped to show is that we jump really quickly to, oh, that student has a problem. They must be referred to special ed. They can't possibly just be a student who has needs for intervention. They must have special needs and therefore we make the referral. We've been doing that and the way the audit categorized this is we've been doing that prematurely. like we're jumping the gun a little bit and and hopping to that referral which then with federal law kicks in a lot of requirements that we as
040a district have to do with evaluation and identification. And so we have a lot of students in special ed compared to the state average overall and probably compared to our peers um certainly compared to some of our peers of of equal size. This will come back in the recommendations and you'll hear us talk about this probably at nauseium throughout the next year. But there's things we could do well before that referral is made to prevent most students from actually needing the referral and to validate the need for the referral for those that do. The the last thing here uh that we'll call out is we've got to make sure that everybody has better information to drive those decisions. So that teacher in the classroom has to know how to use all the data available in
041the district at this point to say yes, I'm actually reached the point where I think the only way this student is going to achieve grade level standards is with special education. And families have to know that as well. That's part of the relationship and communication work that we've got to improve because sometimes you understand this as a mom or dad, you want the best for your child, but families sometimes get really anxious and you're like, "My kid isn't where I need them to be." Like, "What are we going to do? Can we put them in special education?" And that may be the right answer, but it may also not be the right answer. And we've got to help people understand that journey uh to really ensure that that's the best placement and identification for the
042student. And then the leadership and talent. Again, part of this is work for us specifically at the central office level and part of this goes out to the campuses as well. Broadly, it's making sure that we all know exactly what we have to do. So, we have clear roles and responsibilities. We have clear and strong ways to evaluate impact and success uh in those spaces. and we're providing the professional learning support so that every educator and team member can consistently get better at their work along the way. Uh this sits in a in a context that the auditors and we also thought was important to call out. Our leadership in special education is also new either completely new to the district that includes me and one of the directors on our team or somebody who's
043new in that space which is Miss Castillo who's been serving as our interim ED here. Um, so at the same time that we clearly have a lot to improve and repair or launch in in our case based on these findings, we also have a a leadership team that's new to the space and new to the organization as well. Board President, can I also add? Yes, Dr. Senson. So, one of the things um and I'll state this a little bit um clearer here. Um, so when you look at some of the language here, this is similar in some respect to the financial audit, when you look at bullet point one, performance evaluation tools do not include compliance and quality measures related to special education and are not differentiated for individuals primarily serving special education students. that
044talks about accountability. Lack of clear roles and responsibilities for special education across central office, campus leaders and teachers creates gaps in supports, ownership and compliance that talks about accountability. And so I just want to, you know, again say that as we create systems, structures, and supports, I'm going to say the same comment that I said last time. Systems, structures, and supports are great. They're wonderful and needed. So is professional development. So is all the sports in the world for our educators as we do this work and grow as a system. But the other side of that and I talk about this all the time, right? There is that balance always between support and accountability. Support and accountability. And so as we implement any system, right, what lies in the balance is our students. And so
045when we talk about this leadership and talent slide, I don't want it to not be stated that um as we move forward and get tighter in our systems, um it goes back to what we talk about all the time with Lonear government um governance, right? Student outcomes don't change until adult behaviors change. And so um as we get clear on the evaluation tools and as we get clearer on um the roles across our system and um we put in the supports we will also expect performance to change. Thank you. Yeah, that's exactly that brings us to our last area of real focus in terms of findings here. And again, this is really how we're operating uh special education overall. Some of this will sound familiar to the financial audit as well. The first piece here
046we want to underscore and it's the lack of integrated data systems. Uh we obviously have a lot of data in in our organization. Chief Mayasi is is going to help us over time figure out better ways to pull insights from that and really learn from it and use it. Um, but in the special education sense here from an audit finding, it starts at the most basic level to ensure that the data and special education and the data and the rest of the district actually talk to each other and work well together. We don't have good synchronization yet right now. We're working on that, but that's a clear area of need uh as we move forward. And part of that relates, it's a little embarrassing, but part of that relates to what's in the second space
047here where we struggle at times or we struggle certainly in the fall to have consistent and shared answers to how many students do we have in every classroom in every school. Part of that goes back to the data systems. Part of that goes back to uh what superintendent was just touching on as well is like really strong quality of each individual in the process and accountability for followup and and data accuracy. Uh but those are like really foundational things that we've got to fix really quickly. Uh moving forward, one of the the financial related things here, and this is the exact same thing you heard in the financial audit about a multi-year financial forecast. Yes, we have to have that for the whole district, but we also have to do a better job of that
048specifically for special education. This is a very large portion of our overall budget. There are some really restrictive funding sources that come into play here locally and federally. So, we want to have better long-term vision of what that's going to look like and how we're using that. And we have to reconcile with the fact that in the past four years at least, that's how far back we looked at this data. We have spent more money in special education than the district has received. Whether that's local dollars or federal dollars, like we have spent more than what we've been provided where that is necessary because that is truly what students need. Obviously, that is our obligation. But as you can see through this audit, we also have inefficiencies and sometimes lack of clarity on what we've
049been doing. So, we have not as an organization been as judicious or efficient with our resources in the past as we have to be moving forward. So quick summary of all of that before we move to recommendations. So if just to super simplify all of those findings, we have to get better results for our students. And we have to do that by having stronger systems in the classroom, in campuses, and in central office that supports our educators to provide the best services that they can to students to make sure our students are served in the the best, least restrictive, most inclusive environments and that we're doing that in real partnership with our families and are as informed in that process as we can be. So with that context, let's look at the broad recommendations here.
050all the recommendations uh land in one of these six areas. You see those in the big red boxes on the left of the slide. Getting to these six areas was a little difficult because there's a lot of things that we have to go focus on. And when I show you our our slides at the end, uh, which is similar version of the Gant chart that you saw with the financial audit, it's a little bit overwhelming because there's a whole bunch of actions that we've got to take. And obviously, we have urgency to do that on behalf of our students and we have realism with how much the system can sort of manage and change at any given point in time. And we'll we'll talk about that as well. So, a little bit of a tug-of-war
051with the the audit team, but trying to figure out what is going to be the highest leverage, most impactful things that we as an organ organization can do, and that's focus on these six areas. The first MTSS, another acronym that stands for multi-tered systems of support. Uh that is something that really looks at the pre-special education process. It is saying, "Okay, I'm struggling in reading. I need extra help. What are we going to do for for little Derek? Well, there's intervention plans we can put in place that's more small groupoup time or one-on-one time or tutoring or uh more offline blended lessons with Lexia, for example, to connect back to our last conversation. There's a lot of things that teachers and educators should be doing for students regardless of whether special education ever comes into
052the picture. We've not been doing that. Well, we do not have an MTSS system in place yet. We are working on really launching that and making that a huge priority and focus for next school year. That will be a paradigm shift in many ways uh across the district and certainly not a small lift. But we can't make special education better until we can ensure that only the students who truly need it are there and that when referrals are coming through that they are much higher quality referrals to give the diagnostician better information to know really what that student may need. And that starts with an MTSS process and system. Derek, can I just interject there for one second? I was gonna ask board president, vice president, can I jump in for a second? Of course,
053Dr. Sorenson. Thank you, ma'am. Um, so I also want to say publicly that MTSS though is not the road to special education. I feel like I I always have to say this every time we talk about MTSS because um as we implement um this multi-tered system of support, we're going to be talking about this across the district. And so we'll be talking about this even when it comes to areas like attendance, right? When when students are absent, what do we do? When do we notice? When do we intervene? When students have issues maybe with behavior that aren't related to a disability, when do we step in? When do we intervene? When kids are not doing their homework, right? It it doesn't have to be the road to special education. This is about not letting students
054fall through the cracks. And so our campuses are going to be putting systems and structures into place and we're going to help them do that. And we're also going to be talking with you guys about a system that we're seeking to purchase to help them. But this is about those those ecosystems of support, right? This is about the behavior specialists. This is about our counselors. This is about um all of the positions also that we were talking about with you a couple meetings ago, but this is about grade level teams coming together. This is about departments coming together. This is about teachers as first responders noticing when kids aren't growing and and you know getting the grades that they need to get. Like what is what's happening and intervening before it's too late, right? And
055so I really want to be clear that MTSS is not the road to special education. Yes, we are going to have a documented process in order for kids to get a referral to special education, but multi-tiered systems of support um is something that we're going to have a framework for next year outside of it being a referral process to special education. Thank you, Dr. Sornson. Once a referral is made and we've gone through the evaluation process for a student and now have that individualized education plan or IEP, we've got to ensure that those are better quality. The the superintendent's word earlier is so um appropriate here. It is the roadmap for how to support that individual student. So, if it's not well done, then we're on the wrong path uh for that student. and we're
056doing that sort of student by student by student in the district. So, deep focus here on making sure that it's a rigorous and quality process of creating the IEP and equally so on monitoring and implementing what's in that IEP. And that relates to the continuum of services part. You've heard us talk about least restrictive environment or LRE as an official sort of legal term when it comes to to special education. And that's ensuring that we have students again as close as possible to that general education setting as we can get. If you can be in there all day every day with a little bit of support coming into the classroom, that's most ideal. There are students though, we want the community to hear us say this, like there are students who are always going to
057need the most intensive support in the highly specialized environment. And we are not at all saying that we're not committed to that. We just want to ensure that each student is in the place that is best suited for them and their their goals that are set out in that IEP. As it relates to staffing, part of this is both how we like deploy and assign people and get more efficient and productive in that process and part of it is how we really support uh everybody in their role both on the general education side and the special education side. that clearly has a tight connection to the professional learning recommendation here. We've got a lot more support and sort of teaching and coaching to provide throughout the field and I want certainly our general educators to
058hear me say that that includes them as well. Uh there's work that we have to do with general education teachers and there's a lot more work that we have to do with special special education teachers and staff. And then with our families, we got to deepen and build more trust here. We've got to be a better partner uh with information sharing across all of this work. Uh we've got to do better just even educating our families to know what the special education process looks like and what they can expect and require and demand of us uh in that way. And at the end of the day, we want to be able to celebrate with families when for the students who we can get there, we realize, hey, you actually no longer need special education. And
059that is a really exciting moment. And that's a testament to what we did in the partnership along this journey. So again, all of this is rooted in a really sort of ambitious and aggressive vision over the next four years to ensure that every child truly is supported and empowered to reach their full potential and that we are doing everything we can to realize our vision for every student truly in the district, including those in special education. And so we will be proposing these constraint progress measures to you uh related to both academic outcomes and that student and family experience and deeply touching on the two things that we probably spent the most time talking about tonight. The first is looking at the quality of those IEPs. We want to get to a point where at
060least 85% of IEPs meet like a really strong quality standard in the district. And similarly, we want to ensure that future students who are referred to special education that at minimum at least 85% have received everything they should have received in MTSS before that referral is even done. Because to the superintendent's point, it's better for the student if we can identify and treat that need as early as possible. And if that doesn't require special education, that's great. And so, we just want to ensure that that process and that system that we're building is actually working in the way that it should. And all of that does really push on this vision and culture of serving students in a least restrictive environment as we think about like adult change management and sort of mindset and philosophy
061work that we have to do uh as we go about implementing all of these recommendations. This is one of them. Um there is a tendency for teachers not just in La Hoya but in other places too to say like you just got to get out of my classroom. I I'm not the one suited for you. Like I can't handle you. You just got to get out of my classroom. And the adult who's stressed and trying to figure it out in the moment. We can empathize with that. That goes back to that professional learning and support we talked about earlier. Like we got to better position all of our teachers and education educators to not have to default to that sort of of position. Uh, but we've also got to make sure that students are welcomed
062and are able to stay and are getting everything they need in those least restrictive environments. So, that's going to take vision. That's going to take responsibility, accountability, sort of mindset work and belief systems. And we're going to have to really monitor uh our work along the way and celebrate when we implement these recommendations and when our educators are making those changes and improvements that we have to make together. So lastly, just to close out over the next few slides, uh won't go into depth here, but just want to show visually a few things. So each of those areas of recommendation, again, MTSS is the first one, has specific actions that we need to go take as an organization. This Gant chart where it's grayed in shows when we would be deeply focusing on that or
063really starting that work. As you look across these recommendations in that second column of 2526, we see over these three slides, there's a lot of things grayed in there. We want to be transparent with you and the community. We are not going to be able to focus on all of those things at the same time. The auditors recognized that as well and they knew that we would need to step back particularly when we solidify our leadership team uh in this work to say here's how we can phase this in in the most successful and impactful way. So we will come back to you as the board in the community in a few months and say okay we've now been able to reflect on this even more. We know all of the work that we're trying
064to do in the district. So here's how we think we will sequence this. So, we're not taking anything off the list. It just may move around in terms of what year we actually prioritize that as the next thing that we've got to improve systemically. And so, know that's something that we owe you uh and we owe the community in terms of next steps here for clarity. And obviously we will continue to share transparently throughout this four-year journey uh where we are uh and the progress we're making or the lack thereof if that turns out to be the case and what we're going to do to fix that as well. But we are fully committed to achieving that vision, achieving better outcomes for our student and taking on the transformation that's needed in special education in
065this district. With that, happy to take questions. Members of the board, before I turn it over to Marcy for additional remarks, does anybody have any questions for Dr. Little? Um, I have a question, Dr. Little. Um, I know that this focuses on um a lot of shifts that we have to make right from where we're at to where we're going, but um did the audit find anything that we were doing that was done really well? Yeah, I appreciate you asking that because again, there's a lot of people out there working incredibly hard every day. Uh a couple things that we've done at a district level even this year are not shown as findings and they otherwise would have been and that's on the high-quality instructional material side like making sure students particularly those served in
066inclusive settings have access to really strong grade level material is important for every child in the classroom. So as we continue to improve HQIM sort of systems and and resources that's going to help here uh in in so many ways. Um, the other thing I would say that's not called out but is is something that's really positive is really at the lower level in the prek space uh with our early childhood special education classrooms and thinking about how we are supporting students as early in their journey as possible again because we want to get to the place where as many students as we can are actually dismissed from the need for special education. And so the earlier we can provide supports and services the better. So, those are just two quick examples of things that
067are are like strong points that we can build off of as a district. Board member Pñena, I would also add um something that they commented on is we had a crossf functional team. Yeah. that um worked on not only the recommendations but the findings and it was a cross functional team from campus folks, central office folks um all coming together and they really commented on not only was there a shared vision from this team but um shared values. Um so when it came time to really saying what do we want to do moving forward this cross functional team from across the district really had shared vision shared valued values and also like clear drive um to really address the things that needed to be addressed. And so it was people from all different roles and
068walks from throughout the district. And so, um, I think that that should be, you know, really paused and, you know, applauded because we all don't come from the same place in the district. And so, to just have the same drive um to really address this, I thought was um a great recognition from from our partners and we're so excited that they're going to continue to serve on that cross functional team, right, and help sort of with implementation and feedback along the way. Thank you. I have a question as well Dr. Litter. Um so you mentioned in the presentation that we have been uh maybe over diagnosing for sped and for that our numbers our percentage of students um are a bit more than what they should be. Um what would be what percentage are we
069at for sped in our student body and then what's a more comparable number we should be at? Yeah and this is a real tricky sort of sentence to lay out because we got to sort of thread a needle here. Uh right now we have about 14% of our population is identified as special education. On average, we would expect that to be closer to 10 to 12%. So it's not like we're 20some percent and we're way out of line, but each student is a student that's now put on a different path in some ways. That also puts pressure uh on resource allocation as well, and it may not have been the right referral. The other thing that we will start to look at much more closely, especially when MTSS starts functioning really well, there's another acronym
070in SPEG called a DNQ. It stands for does not qualify. When you get to the referral point, you want to see that your does not qualify rate is about 20%. So, you want 80% of students who are being referred typically to qualify and about 20% who do not. Um, so we've got to see that we have a better split overall in that percentage and we're not getting premature or bad referrals because we haven't done all the work leading up to it that we have to. Great. Thank you, Dr. Little. Dr. Little, I have a question for those individuals that are transitioning out of the special ed. I mean, is there is that challenging or are some of these students saying, you know what, I I feel comfortable where I've I'm at because I've been there
071for so long. Do you see that as a challenge? It can be. Unfortunately, President Alvarez, we have like so few examples of that um that it's sort of hard to know because what has often happened here in La Hoya and unfortunately in many places in the country is like once fed, always sped. That is not what it's designed to be or to do. And so, we've got to do a better job of meeting those goals in the IEP and showing that that student can be successful in a general education context without the supports. When it does happen though, the biggest challenge is often on the parent side and that's like trepidation. So, my kid is doing well and they've been getting all these resources. If they're not getting all those resources anymore, how do we
072know they're still going to be doing well? Like that's the tugof-war that that you see happen with parents. But the other thing to reassure families and just to reassure the system, if you're in special education, you meet your objectives, we see that you can be dismissed and you need to come back later, that's okay, too. And we might find that you're coming back for a different reason altogether. Like special education needs do not stay consistent across the entire sort of 14 years a student may be with us from preK3 to 12th grade. And so the nimleness that takes from us broken record, but back to quality IEPs and and what's going into that has to get better. Thank you. I have a question. Sorry, Dr. Mendes. So for the students who are placed on special
073ed and then dismissed, um I have an understanding like when you go for a career uh certification tests or maybe the ACE uh you can get some extra time since you're special ed, but if you're dismissed, are they going to be able to have some accommodations later in life? Yeah. When they're 20, 30 years old. It depends. Uh well, if they're 20 or 30, that comes down to a whole different area of ADA law and like what employers will or will not do in reference to um the disabilities accommodations law. The way special education, I'm really glad you asked this question, so give me just a second to answer it. Uh special education in the pre-K12 context exists solely to give you the supports and services you need to get closer to grade level outcomes
074and achievement. It at its core is an academic support service for students. Special education does include related services. So you may get speech therapy or physical therapy or we may buy a device for you to help with your hearing, but all of that again is ultimately intended to make sure you can access grade level expectations academically. So it's not a broader disability function. There's another thing called 504 which looks at like health related impairments. So you might have health related issues and not be special ed or you might be both or you might be all of those and gifted and talented. Like students show up in a lot of amazing ways. But as it gets into the adult space that gets into a different area of like compliance and regulatory issues and comes much more
075down to um like federal labor laws. In the college space though, some of the special education accommodations can continue, but it depends on the need. It depends on sort of the university and what they're doing. Thank you. I had a question um just to tie a little bit on the on everybody that a lot of good questions by the way. Um if a student exits from the special education, do they still can you explain a little bit on the supports that they get afterwards? Do they continue having that support with the school um as well as the MTSS? Is there something you can explain there? Every student in the district should always get whatever support they need to be successful. It does not matter whether they're labeled SPED or not. So, if we have a
076student who receives special education services and they do get to the place where they're dismissed and are no longer in special education, that doesn't mean they're still not going to have struggles, whether that's academically or with attendance or with behavior. like things come up in the developmental journey, it's on the educators, the school, and us to really understand what that need is and to provide those services through MTSS. That'll really be our like umbrella way of thinking about this moving forward. Um, and that's got to be true regardless. And so, I'm so glad the superintendent said it like MTSS is not the path to special education. We don't want our district to think about MTSS as only related to special education. MTSS exists for every student in the district that needs it and it's a
077systemic way of thinking and approaching the supports that they need to be successful. Thank you. That was very helpful. Dr. Little, I mean a very very informative presentation. Dr. Senson, you have anything to add to that? Um I mean what I what I would add is that um this is going to be a we use this term um in cabinet when we talk about systemic shifts. um this instructional approach um of multi-tered systems of support is going to be a systemic shift for us um as we think about student supports. And so this isn't just in special education. People talk about it in the realm of special education because according to the law, you have to document that you've done these things in order for students to then have a referral, right? You have to
078have documented supports. But what I would argue again as a practitioner is that in order for students to not fall through the cracks, we should be intervening when kids are just struggling with long O as they're learning to read as students are struggling with their fine motor skills when they're in prek, right? And so as we notice these things, right? I mean, I go back to my own experience as a high school principal. I would have students enter freshman year struggling readers. And so, did that necessarily mean that he or she was a student who was special needs? Maybe. But that was for us to then learn very quickly. Was this a student who just hadn't learned to decode yet and had fallen through the cracks? Or was this a student who was maybe dyslexic?
079or was this a student who actually had a disability? And so we had to go through processes first to determine was this a student who was special needs or did we just need to teach him and her at 15 years old to learn how to decode. And so before we then say that this is a student who special needs, we have to go through processes to intervene and support. So um we have to help our schools develop these systems, develop these processes and actually intervene whether that is behavior, academic attendance, all of these things. Um rather than it just be you know students either sink or swim on their own and and again how do we involve our parents in this process? Um how do we involve our community in this process? How do we
080involve counselors in this process? How do we involve our our behavior specialists in this process? Our social workers in this process so that it becomes an ecosystem of support. Um and it's not just on the teacher. Thank you, Dr. Sorenson. Joseph, I mean, Dr. Lou may proceed. Thank you. That's all we have to present tonight. Again, I'll just flip through them quickly to get to the next presentation, but we do have a set of appendices here if the community wants to dig deeper into some of these findings and recommendations. Each recommendation has specific actions and a vision um that we've laid out in that area. So, those are available here for folks uh to study further. But thank you board for supporting us through this work in the audit and we look forward to showing
081results along the way. Dr. Before you leave, first of all, again, thank you. Great presentation. Um, and, uh, I'm curious, will this information be available to our parents uh, on our website? Yes. Uh, we'll make sure that the audit uh, results, this presentation is available as well and through our newsletter that we send out, the pack newsletter. There will be information in there also. Great. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Little. Okay. Next item on the agenda is the superintendent's constraints and northstar goal presented by Dr. Sorenson. Thank you, board president. Um so, and I can't help it. I'm sorry. I think about um board member Gomez every time I lead into this presentation. Good. We're good. Right. Find it out there. Okay. Because he looks at me every time we do the integrity instrument and
082we don't have our superintendent constraints. So, here we go. Right. conservator, we're going to have potentially superintendent constraints here. Okay. So, this evening, um I am here to um present to the board and ask for your approval on superintendent constraints and the progress measures um as I said that I would bring once we have the um special education audit complete. So, just to remind the board and the public, um, constraint one was that the superintendent shall not allow conditions that decrease student achievement. Constraint two, the superintendent shall not allow conditions that harm students with disabilities. And constraint three, the superintendent shall not allow conditions that purposely compromise transparency and trust with the community. Those were approved by the school board on November 20th, 2024. Um now I am proposing constraint progress measures. So to remind
083the board and again the community um the constraint progress measures proposed back in November for um constraint one progress measure 1.1 any campus with a D or F rating for two consecutive years will receive a strategic academic intervention initiated by the superintendent and 1.2 two, the percentage of students who attend A and B campuses districtwide will increase by 6% by the end of the 2829 school year. Now moving um into constraint progress measures for um constraint 2 now that we have the audit um is that 2.1 to ensure at least 85% of IEPs meet quality standards as defined by the IEP quality standards rubric review by 2829. And again lifting that up um because we talked so clearly about how the IEP the individualized education plan is the students individualized roadmap to academic and andor
084behavioral supports for that individualized student. So making sure that that document meets quality standards um is really important to us as a district. And then 2.2 to ensuring that at least 85% of students that are newly referred for special education have a fully documented MTSS intervention plan prior to receiving services by 2829. Again, ensuring that students are getting the services that they need. Um but also ensuring that we are doing all that we can on the front end to make sure that we are intervening and providing services on the front end so that um tier one, tier 2 and tier three interventions um and our prevention is there on the front end and that it is documented um in accordance with the law. Um and constraint progress measure three as we talked about before in
085November 3.1 school actions will not occur without significant engagement with and feedback from the community and 3.2 satisfaction will be measured by an annual district climate survey. Fall 2025 um a survey to provide baseline data to set future growth will occur. um since we are kicking off a strategic plan in the fall, that is when we will initiate our first survey. So those are the proposed constraint progress measures that I have for you this evening. All of this aligns with our system of great schools work. Um as a district, as a part of the system of great schools, we also um will be asking the board to adopt a northstar goal. And you'll see that the Northstar goal um is in alignment with the constraint progress measure 1.2 which is to increase um our um
086our students in A and B campuses by 6%. If we do this um we will move ourselves to an A district which is what we are aiming to do. So with that um I will turn it over to the board for questions. Members of the board do you have any questions for Dr. None. Yes, sir. All right. Seeing that we have none, Dr. Sorenson, thank you very much. Thank you. Okay. Next item on the agenda is a longar lonear governance time use tracker report May 7, 2025. This is one of my favorite reports. So, Joseph, hope you have some good news. Oh, it is. Yes. Um last in last meeting when I shared the report I I said that good news was was on the way. Um and in fact good news has arrived. Um
087so yeah so um of course um this time use tracker is about is uh aligned with our lonear governance work. Um we heard in pre in the earlier presentation um that student outcomes can't don't change until adult behavior change. Um and so our lonear governor's work is really driven um by that mantra. Um and so according to our tracker last meeting um we had 66 total minutes of of our 150 minute meeting um dedicated to student outcomes and adult outcomes. Um so that registers at a 44% um of our time was spent dedicated to addressing student and adult outcomes. Um that is a quite a that's a it's a big increase um from where we've been at the last couple um couple of meetings. Um, again, some of some of that's due to um some
088structural changes that we made to the agenda. Um, as well as some tailoring, some customizing of our presentations um to directly speak to um our lo our student outcome goals and and our progress measures. So, with that, I'm happy to take any questions. Great news, Joseph. And so, what I appreciate about all this is the transparency. And so it's kind of like our little report card, making sure that we're focusing on our students. Members of the board, do you have any questions for Joseph? No questions. None. All right. See, we have no questions. Thank you very much, Joseph. Good news, man. None but good news today. Great. Great. Love it. Dr. Baretta, our conservator, is next. And um she will be giving us our TEA conservators report. And again, Dr. Dr. Thank you for making
089the trip to South Texas. Oh, absolutely. Good evening, uh, President Alvarez, Dr. Sorenson, members of the board in the community. This evening, I share with you the, um, monitor monitoring report that we submit on a monthly basis. So, what you're seeing is April's report. So, it's always going to be a month lagging behind. Um, I also sent it to each of you in your email, so you should have that as well. And this will be posted um on the website. So if you go to the Hoya ISD website, click on school board, then click on the LSG area of the schoolboard's page, and then it's all the way at the bottom under conservative reports. So I'm not going to read the whole thing to you, but I just wanted you to see it in its
090entirety. The first page has all of the information why we're there, what the exit criteria is is, and then on the second page, the gold band at the very top, that's the goal. This is the exit criteria goal, and this was a goal that was um uh written by TEA. So, we need to do this before um before the intervention is over to make sure that it's successful. So under that exit criteria goal um we have uh a narrative right. So in that narrative under the board uh area I just talked about um board prep how just wanted to make sure that it was on the record that everybody knows that board members attend a board prep session before each board meeting. So it's not just what everybody has seen here. I want everyone to
091know that the work you guys put in and the team puts in is to make sure you guys understand what's happening, you can ask more questions. Um, and sometimes the team even makes um adjustments to their presentation when you say you need more information or something isn't quite clear. So, I wanted to make sure that that was documented uh for the community. Um, I also documented that we hadn't had success with our time use tracker as uh, President Albert has alluded to, but then after conversations with the agency about how we might be able to do this, um, we made some adjustments to how we present, making sure that we're aligning everything to the goals, uh, so that we can count that, um, as time spent discussing student outcomes because we indeed are. Um as
092you guys asked fabulous questions earlier about this special ed audit under the second exit criteria goal that one is around um business and finance area. So, in April, the main things that that I learned about and I want the public to know is that uh campuses are working on the budget, right? Principles got their budget books um and that the next steps in the budget and staffing processes are making sure that the staffing is in alignment with tabby recommendations. Making sure that uh staffing is right sized based on the enrollment. That's super super important. um realignment of the district central office to best support campuses and as you've heard from this administration from the very beginning continue to adopt a ROI strategies which are academic return on investment strategies in the budget process basically asking
093are we getting the bang for our buck are we using this money effectively and is it really having an impact on this particular area and if not there's some uh positions that were eliminated and re uh re-imagined, right? And so this happens, this could happen on a yearly basis, but what I love about this district is that they look at everything to make sure that how they're spending public money um is on the right things and having an impact, right? Um, and so we know that uh the budget's going to be aligned to the strategic plan and the budget will be recommended for adoption in June. I know that in May we're going to have a um budget workshop. So you'll be hearing more about details of that budget. If you look on the next
094page, that is exit criteria three and this one is around academics. So, I talked a lot about the parent engagement session that was held with the community. Super successful. Uh talked about staffing allocations. All those were finalized. Contracts went out. Um and then I also mentioned you you if you're not if you're from here, everybody knows about the attendance campaign that La Hoya had and it's been very successful so far. Um, and so it's the idea that whatever we focus on improves. That's what we did. We know that students can't learn if they're not in school, right? And so to that end, students are coming to school more and hopefully um the learning will increase as well. I also talked about um the open house on the 29th of April at Ga and Sigin. Again,
095this is just more support being being provided to families that are going to make this shift in going to this new campus. And so, this is just text. This is things that I write that are happening at the board meeting from meetings that I attend, things that I observe, um, and any reports that I can get. This is my way of letting the agency and the community know of progress that's happening within the district. Um at the bottom there's a blue band that says directives. We have not issued any directives at all to La Hoya ISD. Um the following page talks about monthly progress. So in April we built out this part of the um of the monitoring report. So we developed um based on the reason for my appointment and your appointment as a
096board of managers and the superintendent's appointment. I looked at all the reasons that that we all got here right and developed activities based on that and a lot of these are around policy right around board behaviors effective behaviors. Um so we were able to do this I was able to do this for the month of April. So as you see we have a variety of activities under each of those GPMS. Um then on the one two three on the fourth um fourth part of the fourth column it says phases of implementation. So you'll see a variety of responses there and some we haven't yet started, some we're implementing already, some we're already monitoring. We're we implemented them and we're monitoring them. And if you'll notice under GPM 1.2, I've already marked those areas complete. And
097of course, I talked to the agency before doing this because I was able to do that because this board has not exhibited any of these behaviors or concerns. Again, I want the community to know these are written here for the the board that was elected in here prior to you taking your chair um with the district. So, those are complete. Now, should something happen in the future while I'm here or uh any conservators here, then that could change. That could be off track and we would have to work on making sure that we meet that again. And so, at this point, with those that are complete, we're just we're just going to continue to implement those with fidelity. Um on at the very bottom um under 1.3 we talk about the time at least 50%
098of board time meeting uh time in board meetings spent on student outcomes. We're working on that right as you heard earlier with the time use tracker. We have increased our student outcome minutes. Um and so this activity is saying basically we want to make sure that all regular and special ed meeting uh special board meetings will run effect efficiently and effectively and not exceed 120 minutes from start time as documented in the La Hoya ISD board minutes to end time. We're working towards that. Again, it's not going to be overnight, but we want the community to know that that's something that this board is focused on and working on. Um because when you leave and as the elected board members are peppered through little by little, we want to make sure that these behaviors continue.
099So so that by the time I'm gone, by the time Dr. Sorenson is gone and each of you are gone and the team is gone, all of these will continue. And so this intervention is is expected to last about five years. But if we finish earlier and we can show that all these practices aren't sustainable or in that uh um phase of implementation, then the commissioner may decide to uh to end the intervention early. But we know we're here for the long haul. And so um I wanted to share this part of the uh progress report with you. So next month you can expect to see um the second part of the for the second exit criteria filled out. So with business and finance um and all of that is going to be based on
100the audit that you heard about at the last meeting. Um and the audit that you heard about this meeting will gen will uh likely be in the last exit criteria which is on academics because we know there is a big need for this. Just what you heard about the findings, it's just not acceptable for any of our students uh to fail to meet expectations at those low levels. And so there's a lot of work to do. And like Dr. little said none of this is going to happen overnight. It's going to be it's going to take several years to accomplish all these things and so we'll build this out in phases and you'll see that reflected in when we expect the end date to be. Does anyone have any questions? Members of the board, do
101you have any questions? Yeah, I have one on 1.3 where it says towards the bottom. Uh, by May 31st, 2020, regular and special board meetings will run effectively more efficiently. I have a question. Are student recognition meetings are those considered special meetings? They would have to exceed the 120. They are, and we're going to have to start counting those at board meetings. So, there's something definitely to discuss with the board. We can definitely still have those. we can call them something else rather than board meetings. But again, that's something to discuss with the superintendent and and the board to see what what the board's pleasure is. But those do also count. And so we would get 0% for those meetings. Question. I'm curious because I mean they do go I was looking at Joseph. Yes,
102we that that's a great question because we can talk we had not been we had not been doing that. Yes, we can talk about that our board calendar for next year. Yes. Yes. So, and it's a great time when we're making the plans uh for next year. Um so, board member at Choa, you have a question. If we tie the recognition to a goal, would that thing count? Good. That would count. Yes. again if if these recognitions try to force student achievement, right? Um then yes. See, I like when you give these reports because it keeps us right like it lines us up. We're and I just have to say I'm super proud of you guys. The questions that you were asking during the special ed audit portion of this meeting were exceptional. Exceptional. focused
103on student outcomes, focus on how we serve students, right? And the data. Um, excellent. Do any members of the board, any other members of the board have any questions for Diana? Dr. Betta, thank you for everything again. Safe trip back to back home. Uh, ladies and gentlemen, next item on the agenda is our consent agenda item. Do I have a motion? Um, I move to approve the consent agenda. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Okay. Our next item on the agenda is our closed meeting which will be held for the purposes authorized by the Texas Open Meetings Act, Texas Government Code section 551.001, 551.071, 551.072, 5551.074, 551.076, 076, 551.129, and 551.0821 concerning any and all purposes permitted by the act,
104including but not limited to the sections and purposes listed below. The time is 7:30 p.m. Ladies and gentlemen, we're back from close session. It is 8:55 p.m. Next item on the agenda is 12.1 approval of fuel services. Do I have a motion? I move to approve uh item 12.1. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item is 12.2. Approval of sabas. Why would you say that? Marcos. Sabas, social studies, K5, Instructional Materials and Digital Licensing. Savas, US History, Economics, and World History Digital Instructional Resources. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 12.2. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. All oppose. Motion carries. Following item is 12.3 approval
105of a HQIM Blue Bonnet Spanish reading language arts pilot K through 5. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 12.3. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 12.4. Approval of Amplify for grade 6 through 8th new literacy curriculum implementation. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 12.4. Do I have a second? I second. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 12.5. Approval of instructional resources think certa curriculum grades 3rd through 12th new writing across the curriculum imple implementation. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 12.5. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All
106in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 12.6. Approval of teaching lab at Strong Foundations implementation LSSO lasso 3 provider. Do I have a motion? I move to approve 12.6. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 12.7 se approval of 2year subscription to McCra digital products for students and teacher access. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 12.7. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. Next item on the agenda is 12.8. Approval of quotation 20 number 2025-834 Chromebooks districtwide through DIIR contract DIIR- S uh TSO-3763 and TIPS contract number
107230105. Do I have a motion? I move to approve item 12.8. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. The following agenda item is 12.9. Consider and take possible action regarding level three DGBA grievance filed by Elizabeth Lawing. Do I have a motion? I move that the board approves upholds the level two decision of the administration and denies the grievance. Do I have a second? I second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. Motion carries. The last item on the agenda is 12.10. Consider and take possible action on non-renewal of teacher Emanuel Garcia. Do I have a motion? Um, I move that we postpone this agenda item indefinitely. Okay. Do I have a second? I second the
108motion. Okay, then we will postpone it. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All opposed. Okay. It is postponed. Uh, next item on the agenda is our calendar, um, which is agenda item 13. May 2025 is mental health awareness month. May 25th, 2025, Lao Hoyo ISD, class of 2025 commencement exercise at Bird Ogden Arena this weekend in Edinburg, Texas. Uh, next item is May 28, 2025 special call board meeting, student recognitions. Uh um our next item is agenda item 14 and that is an opportunity for Marcy to say a few words. Marcy, do you have anything to add? Um yes, thank you board president. So um I have two remarks. One uh no three actually. One being is that last week where are my officers in the room? I I see you sir. Um
109where's where's chief? I just uh last week was our police officers week and um just really want to take the opportunity um to always recognize our officers. They do an incredible job. Um not only do our officers but our security staff um do a incredible job across the district. You guys are incredible in everything that you do. you keep us safe, secure with a smile um every single day and uh sometimes not with a smile, but you do what you have to do. And so we thank you so much. Um we weren't here last week and so it's an opportunity to recognize you for all that you do for not only our employees, but our students and our families. So thank you so much. You are appreciated more than you know. So thank you. Yes,
110my pleasure. Um secondly, um so today is educational bosses day and so I really wanted to take the opportunity to thank the board. Um officially you are my bosses and so thank you so much. Um your support, your time, your effort, your energy um really means a lot to not only me but to the community. um you are unpaid, unsung heroes. And so thank you for everything that you do for this institution, for this district, um for my team, um and for the students and families of this district. Um you are appreciated and so thank you so much. Um I don't I don't think that people really understand how much work and energy you you put into this job and it is a job and so thank each and every one of you so much.
111um you are truly my bosses on on all of this. So, thank you. Um and lastly, um we have some celebrations and I I'm looking at Miss Miller who really made dreams come true last Friday night. She's I'm going to like get emotional. How much money? [Music] 3,130, right? Three. A lot of money. three over $3 million was handed out in checks um to teachers who earned it um for the teacher incentive aotment. And so um they earned it. Let me let me start there. They earned it and they earned it through, you know, moving the needle on student achievement, which is incredible. It's hard work of our educators. Um, but I really want to lift up Miss Miller and her team for creating a space for those educators to be celebrated, for those el
112ed educators to be recognized and with their families. Um, their families were in the room and it was an incredible opportunity for their families to celebrate with them. I mean, there were checks in the room of $26,000, $27,000, $22,000. People were in tears. And so she was in tears also. Um and so Miss Miller, your team, thank you for creating that opportunity for our teachers to truly be recognized for the incredible work that they do every single day. Um I love when we get an opportunity to recognize our employees and you really made that special for them with your team and so thank you. And then lastly, go Lobos. Um, our Palm View Baseball kiddos are uh heading off to uh the Elite 8 and so we wish them luck. We love you and go
113get them. We're so proud of you. That's it. That's it for me. Yeah, I would have to agree, Marcy. It was kind of exciting last week when we got to see them off, you know, and um what a comeback they had last weekend. So, I'm very proud of our guys. And of course, we also want to recognize another team from the valley that's there in PSJ. We wish them both good luck. Um, it's going to be an interesting weekend. So, I was asked to read a letter by um, TEA, our Texas Education Agency, and so this will be posted on our website as well, and it's addressed to Dr. Sorenson and myself. The purpose of this letter is to notify you that on May 7, 2025, the Texas educ Texas Education Agency conducted a quarterly
114review of all the conservators and management teams appointed to oversee district operations throughout the state. On May 13, 2025, I reviewed and approved the AY's finals recommendations. This review was conducted in accordance with the requirements of the Texas Education Code 39A-00003b. In addition to the review of conservators and management teams, TEA conducted a review of all the TEA monitors and board of manager placements. At this time, it is my decision to continue the appointment of the conservator and board of managers for the La Hoya Independent School District. Any questions you have may be addressed to Garrett Black in the Division of Governance Interventions at Garrett Black at garrett.black tea.ex.gov. Sincerely, Deputy Commissioner of Governance Steve Lechelon. So, it was important for me to read it and again this uh letter will be placed on our
115website. So, board congratulations. Uh I'm looking forward to continuing working with all of you and of course with you too, Marcy. Thank you, sir. With you too. Um I'd also like to uh as we mentioned earlier, I'd like to thank those that did the presentations to today. Very informative. and Joseph, thank you for the for um the report that you gave us. Good news. And of course, Miss Miller, thank you for what you do. And I know it took a lot. And we've been discussing this for many months. So, thank you for um for the recent aotment of of of the dispersements. That was very nice and and very welld deserved to our teachers and folks here at La Hoya. Before we adjourn, do we have any remarks from any of our board members? looking
116forward to graduation, seeing all our wonderful, amazing students uh complete this milestone. So, yeah, we'll see you on Saturday. No, Sunday. Sunday. Yeah, Blanca, I'm going to take this opportunity to thank you. I mean, the videos that I've been watching, so they're short clips, right? But it's really cool to see the young girl that's going to Notre Dame and then of course the kid. There's only seven kids in the valley that are going to MIT and we have one of them. So, just like we had one last year. So, it's exciting to be experiencing that. So, thank you for showcasing the students that we have. And again, I I still think about the the young lady who wrote a book, you know, and it's just amazing how we have authors and we have just great
117students and great staff and faculty and again acknowledging our police officers. Sir, can I just throw out one more thing because like the good news just keeps going. So, um I got a text yesterday um from Mr. Silva, which is why he couldn't be here this evening. Um we had um groups I can't even tell you the number of kids. You will see them actually next Wednesday um from both Jimmy Carter and Thomas Selenas um win um dozens of awards at academic UIL. They are coming back actually right now from UT Austin. Um so we had I can't even tell you we'll we'll see them all next Wednesday when we're recognizing them. Um but like just dozens of children win awards at academic UIL. So, um, just tons of good news coming out of La
118Hoya. Our kids are amazing and and the coaches and and adults that support them just continue to just pour out their hearts and and give. So, just want to recognize them as well. Thank you, Dr. Sorenson. If more board members have anything else to add, uh, do I have a motion to adjurnn? I move that we adjourn this meeting at 9:08 p.m. Do I have a second? Second the motion. All in favor signify by saying I. I. All oppose. We are adjourned. And at what time did you say? 98 98 908. [Music]