Board Brief from Jan. 17, 2025
91制片厂鈥檚 Board of Trustees had its first meeting of 2025 last night, and here are a few of the highlights.
Peach Elementary student Ejituwo Elleh started the meeting by leading everyone in the pledge of allegiance. The sixth grader did a great job.
Then the section leaders of Lamar High School鈥檚 top choir, A Cappella, helped ring in the new year with an amazing performance of 鈥淔eed the Birds,鈥 from Disney鈥檚 鈥淢ary Poppins.鈥 They were directed by Greg Haugen and Meredith Allums.
The student of the month for January is also from Lamar. Congratulations to senior Alondra Trujillo! Alondra tactfully manages a very busy schedule, gets outstanding grades and serves in leadership for many organizations. In fact, the National Honor Society member is currently the president of multiple student organizations, including the League of United Latin American Citizens and Tempos Logos.
Obviously, 91制片厂 has amazing students. The district also has amazing community partners. Just last month, 91制片厂 partnered with the City of Arlington, City of Arlington Fire Department, Greater Arlington Chamber of Commerce and CBS 11 News to put on the first Mission Joy Toy Drive. Hundreds and hundreds of toys were collected that went to for local families in need. So, during the board meeting, trustees presented all of those partners with the Community Partner Award of Appreciation. Thank you to all of them and to you for making sure so many kids in Arlington had a great Christmas.
After all that fun, there was still a lot of work to get done. The board received the mid-year academic progress report from Chief Academic Officer Dr. Steven Wurtz. He gave an update on the academic performance for literacy and math based on the first curriculum assessment of the school year.
Then Kelly Horn, 91制片厂鈥檚 assistant superintendent of facility services, gave an update on the 2019 Bond program. The biggest news about the bond right now is that Arlington High School鈥檚 huge addition 鈥 funded by the bond 鈥 just opened for students last week. But that鈥檚 not all 鈥 there are still many bond projects underway, including construction of the new Joey Rodriguez Junior High, which will open next school year.
Here’s some of the biggest news to come out of the board meeting tonight: the trustees approved the academic calendar for 2025-2026 school year. Thank you to the 24 members of the calendar committee who worked very hard to build this calendar. The calendar will be posted soon on the district鈥檚 website.
As Texas鈥 89th Legislative Session opened this week, the board received a brief update on the session so far. The trustees plan to follow the session closely and advocate for 91制片厂 and public education with its legislators. You can see the legislative priorities that the board adopted recently here.听
Finally, January is School Board Appreciation Month. So to honor the distict鈥檚 outstanding trustees, students from West Elementary 鈥 under the guidance of art teacher Keyundra Alexander 鈥 presented each trustee with framed artwork they made tied to this years鈥 theme, “Leadership for Tomorrow’s Texas.” They did a wonderful job with the art. Thank you to all of them.
Those are just a few of the highlights from tonight. If you would like more details on any of these, or any of the items not covered in the Board Brief, please click to watch the entire meeting.