Trustees Recognized by Schools with Art, Music, Poetry

by Ronnie Zamora/LFCISD

January is School Board Recognition Month, and students at the 14 Los Fresnos CISD schools thanked trustees for their service at the monthly Board of Trustees meeting Wednesday.

Each trustee was recognized by two schools at the start of the meeting.

They included:

• Trustee Rey Farias: Los Cuates Middle School and Los Fresnos Elementary
• Trustee Leonel Garza: Laureles Elementary and Olmito Elementary
• Board Vice-President Ruben R. Treviño: Los Fresnos High School and Liberty Memorial Middle School
• Trustee Sandra Garcia: Rancho Verde Elementary and Villareal Elementary
• Trustee Martin Castillo: Resaca Middle School and Dora Romero Elementary
• Board Secretary Jesus Amaya: Los Fresnos United and Las Yescas Elementary
• Board President Darlene Pederson: Lopez-Riggins Elementary and Palmer-Laakso Elementary

Several of the presentations were unique, funny and heart-warming.

Students from Los Fresnos Elementary wrote a storybook for Farias and presented it to him, students from Laureles Elementary guitar program sang to Garza, Kevin Saenz and Anica Villarreal from Los Fresnos High School drew a portrait of Treviño, student Sofia Jacinto from Rancho Verde Elementary sang to Garcia, students from Dora Romero presented a cape to Castillo, and super-heroes from Las Yescas Elementary honored Amaya.

Board President Darlene Pederson heard poetry written by Palmer-Laakso Elementary and was treated by guitarists at Lopez-Riggins Elementary. Students from LRE then sang the Los Fresnos High School Alma Mater to Pederson.

Trustees were not the only ones recognized. Superintendent Gonzalo Salazar was honored by trustees for completing 10 years of service as Superintendent. Pederson showed a video by Martin Peña, retired Superintendent of the Point Isabel School District. Peña congratulated Salazar for his years of leadership of the district and called him an academic leader in Region One and the State of Texas.

Two important construction projects which were recently completed were approved as Substantial Completion. They included new Tennis Courts at Liberty Memorial Middle School and the two-story Instructional Wing at Los Fresnos United.

Trustees also approved out-of-state travel for the Los Fresnos High School cheerleaders to attend the Universal Cheerleading Association competition in Orlando, Fla. Feb. 5-8.

Two new teachers for Los Fresnos High School were approved by trustees – Health Sciences teacher Kathryn Hale and Social Studies teacher Franchesca Perales.

Four students from three schools led the Pledge of Allegiance to start the meeting. They included Devine Soto of Los Cuates Middle School, Devin Hunter from Liberty Memorial Middle School, and Arianna Garcia and Melody Vargas de la Moreno from Villarreal Elementary School.

In other action, trustees approved the following:

• Minutes of December 14 board meeting.
• Budget Amendment #4 for Fiscal Year 2016.
• Interlock Agreement with Houston ISAD for Medicaid Administrative Claiming (MAC) Claiming and Billing Services.
• Agreements/Contracts with independent contractors for professional services for 2015-16: insurance consultants.
• Trustees also received financial reports, which included portfolio report, tax collection report, summary revenue and expenditure status reports, monthly disbursements and budget adjustments.

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