No More Open Enrollment for Pre-K Students

The Denver City ISD school board met in regular session on Monday night where a major portion of the meeting centered around the district no longer offering “open enrollment” for those students who are about to enter Pre-K in the district.
Dodson Primary principal Angie Sutton met with the board to discuss different scenarios concerning the new policy and how it will impact her Pre-K students.
The “closed enrollment” has come about due to a new state ruling which will change the number of days a student must attend school each year to the number of minutes they will need each year.
With the new state law each student in the public schools will now be required to attend school 75,600 minutes. The current requirement is 180 days. However, Pre-K students are required to attend half of those minutes which is 37,800 minutes
All Pre-K students are currently attending half day sessions from 8 to 11 am and a separate afternoon session from 12 to 3 pm. Under the new minutes requirement the district would be 5,400 minutes short of the state mandated required minutes if they continued the two half day sessions.
Sutton did go over 3 options for the school board to approve, but was recommending the extended half day option. With this option a student’s day would be from 8 am to 2 pm. Because of a number of reasons, which included a shortage of a staff and limited space, Sutton recommended the extended half day schedule.
With this extended half day the hours for the students would be from 8 am to 2 pm.
She went on to say out of the 57 schools in Region 17, 44 districts currently have full day Pre-K and 13 still have half day sessions and many of the full day programs are combined with Head Start, a route Sutton would like to avoid because of several stipulations that go along with it.
“In order to move from our current open enrollment format we would need to move to an eligibility status,” Sutton said. “Out of the 106 Pre-K students Dodson Primary is currently serving, 64 would be eligible according to the criteria from the Texas Education Association.”
In part that criteria includes being unable to speak and comprehend the English language; be able to participate in the national free or reduced price lunch program; be homeless regardless of the residence of the child, of either parent, or of the child’s guardian; be the child of an active duty member of the armed forces; or be in, or have been in, the conservatorship of the Department of Family and Protective Services following an adversary hearing that was held.
“As with any change there are several pro’s and con’s,” Sutton continued. “We did some extensive research on every option over a long period of time; it’s not as if we sat down one day and said here’s what we’re going to do. There was a lot of soul searching, thoughts, and research done before we came up with these plans.”
Sutton was quick to point out among the con’s in the extended half day would be students needing to meet eligibility requirements and it would affect the parents of non-eligible students such as teacher’s children; and a full day dismissal.
The two Pre-K teachers will be Phyllis Dial and Bretta McLeroy. They will receive help throughout the day from Mrs. Andrade, who is a bilingual aide.
Sutton also noted that when the students are dismissed at 2 pm the two teachers and one aide could then be utilized as interventionist in kindergarten and 1st grade for the remainder of the day to help narrow the gap.
Pre-K will start their annual “Round-Up” in about two weeks to see who will eligible under the new format. Parents are asked to please bring all required documentation at the time of registration.
A letter explaining the new format will be sent to all parents this week.
After a lengthy discussion took place the board unanimously approved a motion for an extended half day Pre-K with a closed enrollment for next year.
Before the meeting started Kelley Elementary students Anibal Blanco and Daniel Gonzalez led the pledges to the American and Texas flags and students from 3rd grade teacher Nancy Competio room presented a short skit. Members of this group included Adamari Rodriguez, Pleng Iadpum, Jazmin Alderete, Julian Montes, Stephanie Fraire, Anibal Blanco, Daniel Gonzalez, Marcos Rodriguez, and Damaris Flores Gonzalez.
Excalibur instructor Jessie Flores was also present where he introduced those students who will be graduating from his program. This included Denisse Salcido, Raul Romo, Lee Rios, Andrew Pierce, Bianco Morales, Naomi Gonzalez, and Jeremy Cederstrom.
Athletic Director Steve Taylor also presented the Regional Qualifying Fillie basketball team and their coaches Kody Brown, Chief Bridgeforth, and Judd Cathey. They made history by not only advancing further in the play offs than any previous team, but also being the first team to make it to the Regional tournament.
School architect Craig Wallace was unable to attend the meeting so there were no updates on the current construction in the district.
Since incumbents Russell Dial and Brad Woosley were the only two candidates to file for their positions a certificate of unopposed candidates as well as a cancellation order for May 7, 2016 Trustee Election was unanimously approved by the board.
Clinton Bowman of the Denver City Press was recognized to the Media Honor Roll for his reporting of all school board meetings.
In the next item the board unanimously approved a motion that stated instructional materials allotment and TEKS Certification for 2016-2017. Basically this means that each district must certify that appropriate money is being spent toward school materials.
The board also unanimously approved several policy updates including FD(LOCAL) concerning admissions. Each student must present evidence to show residency in the district. There are several ways this can be accomplished with the recommended way showing a utility bill.
In personnel items there are three new hires within the district; Jacinda Upchurch, Anthony Livingston, and Misti Livingston.
The board accepted resignations from Gloria Galvan of Dodson Primary, Prissy Summers from the high school, LuAnn Milligan from Kelley Elementary, Emma Galindo from Dodson Primary, Belia Guzman from the high school, and crossing guards Richard Beard, Royce Beard, Doris Roberson, and Sylvia Lozano.
High school math teacher Lida Bustos was reassigned as an ESL teacher and Four County SSA director Cindy Bessire was presented a 2 year contract.
At that point the board went into Executive Session where they were updated by building principals Rick Martinez, Billy Moore, Lori Alexander, Angie Sutton and Athletic Director Steve Taylor on their personnel. The board will act on each teacher and auxiliary personnel in their April meeting.
Board members Joey Rodgers, Johnette Mansur, Connie Lozano, Brian Sutton, Brad Woosley, and Robbie Underhill along with board president Russell Dial were all in attendance.
A special board meeting concerning the sale of bonds will be held on April 4 and the next regular board meeting will be held on April 18 at 6:15.