I have no title for this one!

(If you want the rumors to stop, make those “rumors” available from the horse’s mouth.)

I was unable to attend the beginning of Monday’s meeting. From what I heard it was wonderful celebrating the kids achievements, but there was a lot of talk in the audience. My main man asked the board for transparency real quick during public participation. Then came agenda items. I pulled up my lawn chair and took notes. The chairs there are horrible on my back!

Attendence has been up for all schools lately. They earned money for their schools based on the good attendence. Hard to hear a lot of what is said because the microphones aren’t loud enough or speak into the mic or I’m going deaf.

Mr. Crites asked about teacher absenses and how they count that as some go to development or are out doing other school events.

Mr. Crites questioned expenditures for car rentals and costs incurred for flights to confrence in PA. Maybe next time they can do better due dilligence saving money by booking eariler to save a little money.

Mr. Crites asked if KISD can sell books back that they bought for schools; college text books. Answer is no. I love how Crites is always trying to save KISD dollars. Ms. Yaklin brought up a good point that the books should come back to KISD from the students or they are fined. In other schools they will not give you a diploma if you don’t pay for non-returned books or they do not allow you to walk during graduation. I wasn’t allowed to graduate if I didn’t bring library books back or pay my late fines. Sounds pretty standard to me!

TEA is doing away from the way they did campus improvement plans to a program called Effective Schools Framework. KISD will start with campuses that are IR comprehensive and eventually all campuses for that framework for instruction. Allowing teachers confrences.

KISD will be adopting their own framework for curriculum. Teachers will be able to do their own curriculum plan for their own students at the campus level. District will work with TEAKS. KISD looking at using common lesson plans, easy to follow and understand where everyone is aligned. Planning staff development for summer. I am not a teacher, but this sounds like a wonderful start. I am sure most teachers just want to be free to teach in ways that help the students they have. Not all classes are the same and not all teachers teach the same.

Outside resources will be used to get all this and other ideas in place by summer prior to school starting.

If parents want to know their scores for testing, they can visit Parent Portal. You have to put in student’s information and get a code to access.

There was also discussion about a 2 million dollar grant to KISD but the word “Charter” was used in the grant. Bera passed this information along to Kleberg Elementary school staff and they were opposed to it in fear of employment status. If KISD took this grant teachers will have to resign and apply again. I don’t blame them. I also think we should stay away from anything that says “Charter” at this moment. Bera stated, “This would give half our power to another entity that would run this charter school with their own elected board.” Yup!

Bera will be bringing in personnel for special education to replace Ms, Ruiz. Not sure if the title held will be Special Ed. Director or something else. We will see.

Mr. Garza Sr. asked Bera, “Did Dr. Ruiz leave you anything to follow up on as far as special ed.?” Bera replied, “Unfortunately, she cleared out the computer.” Mr. Garza Sr. asked if there was a way to get back that information. The board talked about what they could do to recover it. The information that was deleted was on a network.

Ms. Adams has been working hard trying to spend grant money before time runs out and they take what hasnt been spent back.

The rest of the meeting you can find in the Kingsville Record page 1A and 4A.

With HM King Athletic Coordinator Carrier leaving one has to wonder how many (other coaches) may follow him...

The board voted to hold two Regualar Board Meetings a month...till.

There was a lot of whispering between Mr. Garza Sr., Mr. Garza Jr., and Mr. Prado tonight. Mr. Garza Sr. was looking at his lap a lot tonight. Maybe he was checking his emails? I dunno, just a guess. It looked like he was looking at his phone.

I am excited as a parent that school will be ending for this school year soon and hope teachers get some much needed rest in between professional development and this new training.

This was a more tame meeting and some decent questions were asked by board members.