UNITED ISD LOOKING AT DRUG TEST CONTRACT

The business committee of United Independent School District agreed
Wednesday to recommend to the full board at their next regular meeting the
awarding of a contract to perform mandatory and random drug testing of
employees and students.

The recommendation, at the full board meeting Dec. 15, will be for a
three-year contract to Laredo Urgent Care, headed by Dr. Oscar Lightner.

Lightner was selected out of six companies that submitted proposals for the
contract. UISD solicited proposals from 30 companies, Purchasing Director
Cordelia Flores said.

According to Lightner's proposal, employee drug tests will cost $60 each,
while student drug tests will cost $30 each, plus $125 for a steroids test.

Starting January, the district is expected to begin randomly testing 10
percent of the more than 6,000 middle school and high school students who
participate in extracurricular activities.

They will provide a urine sample that will be tested for 11 types of drugs,
including alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, steroids, sleeping pills, diet pills
and harder drugs, such as cocaine and heroin.

After the meeting, citizen Rose Cruz wanted to know why the district did
not provide parents with the actual board policy on student drug testing.

Cruz said she attended two UISD townhall meetings,

but was only given a copy of a PowerPoint presentation that only summarized
parts of the policy.

"I'm upset about this," she said. "The language of the law is extremely
important, and parents will not know what it says."

Trustee Francisco "Pancho" Gonzalez Jr. said he would demand more
information on these items at the Dec. 15 board meeting.

In other business, trustees agreed to change the location of future board
meetings.

Starting January, regular and special called board meetings would no longer
be held at United Middle School. They will be held at the Student Activity
Complex, located near the intersection of Loop 20 and Highway 359, which
should be a more central location, officials said.

They also agreed to eliminate the mid-management certificate requirement
for those applying for a campus coordinator position, which includes
athletic coordinators and coaches, among others.

United South High School is currently seeking an athletic coordinator and
head football coach, Associate Superintendent Bobby Santos said.

After the business committee meeting, trustees from the budget committee
convened and learned that opening two new elementary schools in the fall
should cost approximately $2 million, most of which would go toward campus
salaries.

Also, board members listened to preliminary results from a pilot program
they have implemented to revamp how budgets are designed for each campus.

Before, each campus was given a working dollar amount based on their number
of students and types of student population, such as bilingual education.

Campus leaders would then take that dollar amount and budget their needs,
accordingly.

With this refined system, however, UISD officials want each campus to
conduct a formal assessment of their needs and report "in their own words
what is it they need over and beyond the money they are getting," Assistant
Superintendent for Finance Laida Benavides explained afterward.

The goal is to have campuses better focus their allocated monies on their
particular needs.

As part of the pilot program, UISD asked Beth Porter, assistant principal
at United High, to meet with department heads and find out specific needs
and areas of concern.

Porter submitted a report on how United High is faring with monies budgeted
for basic supplies and core courses: English, math, social studies and
sciences.

She will next issue another report for specific needs in the elective courses.

Benavides summarized Porter's report to board members and touched on topics
such as travel monies for staff development; the science department budget;
and more compensation for after school tutoring.

Teachers currently receive $20 per hour for after school tutorial sessions.
As such, the school is having a difficult time getting more teachers to
stay and tutor after school, Benavides told board members.

Staff has instructed Porter to obtain more specific information on her
preliminary findings, and will later determine if the pilot budget
worksheet they prepared is effective.

Once the process is running smoothly, staff will have each campus go
through the same budget building process in the spring.