June, 2010
Volume 18, Issue 10
EYES ON THE BOARD
THINGS CHANGE YET STAY THE SAME
PETITIONS SIGNED THIS SCHOOL YEAR
Social Security Fairness—petitions delivered to Ruben Hinojosa, John Cornyn, Kay Bailey Hutchison
Support the Paraprofessional (a reason and a hearing before termination)—petitions delivered to Texas AFT Legislative Staff, and all valley legislators
MORE TRAINING FOR TE HOURS
Wednesday, June 23, 2010 will be our next training—Safe Schools—for the teacher. The training will be from 5 p.m.-8 p.m. at our office (1500 Dove—across from Gold’s Gym). Light refreshments will be served.
On Monday, June 21, 2010 the McAllen ISD Board of Education will vote to pass the MISD Budget for 2010-2011. We will be there to represented all of you. See you there.
MISD Board Meeting—
Budget Workshop, 4 p.m.-5:30 p.m.—June 17, 2010
We had no paper work to follow along, but we have requested through open records.
Administration is recommending a $750 raise for teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses, and speech pathologists. All other employees will get a 2% increase.
There was a discussion regarding Fine Arts. It seems that administration is separating funds out for the arts. The plan of repairing or replacing instruments is still in the budget—for 2010-2011 $80,000 is set aside. In addition, staff in Fine Arts is being moved around. Mr. Saldivar ask if a $1,000 bonus could be given (like La Joya ISD), but administration said that was not legal ????
Of course, the $1,000 in La Joya did not count toward their Teacher Retirement account.
MISD Board Meeting—
Budget Workshop, 3:12 p.m.-5 p.m.--June 7, 2010
As usual, we did not have the paper work to follow the budget discussion. There was really nothing new. Requested info.
MISD Board Meeting, 6 p.m.-8:45 p.m.—June 7, 2010
Garza Elementary’s new Principal is Dr. Cynthia Noel. Sanchez Elementary’s new Principal is Cynthia Rodriguez. Travis Elementary’s new Principal is Sonia Casas. The New Director of Payroll is Benito Garza.
There have been additional scholarships (for our high school seniors) now totaling $14,783,602.
The Board decided not to establish a Line of Credit for $7.5 million between MISD and BBVA Compass Bank. The district had not needed to borrow the money during the last 8 years to cover payroll cost.
The McAllen High School Big Gym was named “Coach Teresa Casso Gymnasium.” Coach Casso earned the honor for her winning record in Lady Bulldog Basketball. Coach had 800+ wins and 29 winning seasons. Outstanding!
There was no discussion of D and DD days regarding your health benefits—be alert later in June and July.
A salary raise was discussed of $750 for teachers, librarians, counselors, nurses and speech pathologists. In addition, an increase of 2% for the rest of the employees was discussed. Then in the next breath a health insurance increase was mentioned—thus no real raise.
Approval of a Sole Source Purchase for The INOVA Center was approved by a 7-0 vote.
There was a discussion of purchase through the Texas Department of Information Resources for computers, software, and installation for McAllen High School and Rowe High School.
Another discussion item was the AVID Center and MISD. The AVID grant is over and local monies will fund the program.
Health in the curriculum will be done from K-8. Health in high school will be an elective.
A FEW NOTES
During the month of May, the new student transfer policy was implemented. FDA Local policy pertains to transfer requests from students residing in other school districts outside the McAllen school district—Edinburg, Weslaco, etc.
It will be no surprise to all of you that Mission CISD has also opened their doors to students outside the district. We hear that others will follow.
In a recent board meeting Ponce said 187 families outside of the district applied on the first day of the new policy.
In another bit of information, only two (2) school districts across the Valley will give a raise. We are trying to verify this.
The principals jobs open at Sam Houston Elementary and Alvarez closed on June 17, 2010 the MISD District Web site said. There will be interviewing, and then we guess the selection will be handled at the June 24, 2010 Special Meeting or the July 26, 2010 Board Workshop.
On the June 21, 2010 there is an agenda item to purchase real estate—not clear what piece of property.
We will be attending the July 21, 2010 District Health Insurance Committee meeting to see the specifications for bidding—your McAllen AFT President attends representing all of you.
Then on July 28 we will attend another District Health Insurance Committee meeting to see the results of bidding.
This will be the first real health insurance meeting in months.