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South San ISD highlights benchmark gains, votes to buy 1,700 Chromebooks and accept LASSO grants with NIET support
Summary
District leaders reported mixed benchmark results and a plan to correct industry-based certification coding errors; trustees ratified purchases of 1,700 Chromebooks and 83 charging carts funded by Title I carryover and approved LASSO grant awards with NIET as provider.
At its March 16 meeting the South San Antonio ISD Board of Trustees heard a series of academic monitoring reports and approved several measures aimed at accelerating student achievement and ensuring test readiness.
Dr. Jennifer Gutierrez presented Career, College, and Military Readiness (CCMR) targets and secondary reading progress. The district reported a baseline of 24% industry-based certifications for grades 10–12 with a local target to reach 28% by the end of this school year and longer-term goals to reach 44% by 2030. Gutierrez said some IBCs were not properly coded in Skyward — the Texas Education Agency’s accountability feed — and that the district is retraining staff and will resubmit corrected data to TEA through the June resubmission window. "TEA has given us the opportunity to resubmit data," she said, adding that a CCMR Guiding Coalition of directors, counselors and CTE staff is meeting monthly to improve coding and verification.
On benchmark assessments, Gutierrez said the district saw areas of celebration and areas for focused support. The district cautioned that benchmark testing administered in late February included items not yet taught (the presentation cited roughly 30–34% of some assessments as untaught items), and that retester and summer-test results will be included in the final STAR/TAPE counts later in the year.
Trustees voted to ratify urgent technology purchases: 83 charging carts to house 1,700 Chromebooks for third through fifth grades. Gutierrez said the devices and carts were funded from Title I federal carryover funds and were purchased to avoid device failures during the seven-hour STAR testing window. "We purchased 83 Chromebook carts, and those house 1,700 Chromebooks," she said. The board approved the ratification and the purchase by roll call.
The board also accepted LASSO (Learning Acceleration Support Opportunities/LIFT) grant awards. The district reported a LIFT district-level award of $1,091,000 (70% of which TEA requires go to an approved provider), an add-on award for schools in comprehensive status of $480,000 (50% to the provider), and a $200,000 school-improvement award for a single campus; the awards represent multi-year supports with the district approving a one-year contract era with the proposed provider, NIET. Gutierrez said NIET would continue work with principals, master teachers and mentor teachers to strengthen instructional leadership and implementation of high-quality instructional materials.
All motions to approve the reports, the technology purchases and the grant/provider arrangements were made, seconded and approved by roll call.
The presentations included questions from trustees about disaggregated subgroup performance, the Bluebonnet curriculum rollout and reported curriculum errors (presenters said the district had flagged about 4,200 errors to TEA and that TEA had been responsive). District staff said supplemental resources, teacher coaching, internalization and lesson-rehearsal protocols will be used to close gaps and build assessment stamina.
Next procedural steps: district staff will complete the Title I purchase reporting, implement device deployment on campuses for test practice, and execute the provider contract per grant terms.
