BRENHAM ISD BOARD GETS UPDATE ON STRATEGIC PLANNING FOR GOAL #4
The Brenham ISD Board of Trustees met at Krause Elementary on Monday evening to get update on the district’s Strategic Planning for Goal #4.
Goal #4 involves the district using a computerized selection process to decide which student attends which elementary school, based on logic set forth by the district, with the goal of balancing out the demographics of each of the schools.
Assistant Superintendent Paul Aschenbeck and Director of Information Technolgy Kim Strauss announced that they had met with all the schools and with teachers, and got positive response from staff members.
Goal #4 involves a process where placement of students on the elementary level involves several criteria, with the goal of balancing demographics at each elementary school.
Some of the criteria include whether the child needs bilingual education, Special Education, placing students with other siblings, and placing the children of staff members at the same school as the staff member.
Geography of the school is not considered; because a student lives closer to one school will not dictate which school that child will end up.
Brenham’s new police chief Craig Goodman was in attendance to be given a formal introduction.
Officer Dant Lange gave the introduction to the Board of Trustees and Chief Goodman spoke to the trustees and the crowd in attendance about his past and why he was proud to now be a resident of Brenham and to serve the community,
The Board also accepted monetary donations to the District from ExxonMobile Educational Alliance program grants ($6,000), Krause Elementary PTO ($6,4444) and Legacy Field Donation, from Marshall and Leslie Harrell ($3,000).
The amount needed to complete Legacy Field Campaign is $405,000.
Also presented were annual School “FIRST” financial accountability ratings for Brenham ISD.
The District received the highest rating possible, and is working to see that that continues.
Some of the criteria looked at for scoring include complete auditing and no student decline in the district.
Also recognized were the “You Make A Difference” award recipient and Drive One4 Ur School.
Superintendent Walter Jackson presented Merle Picone, Dr. Wilfred Dietrich and Jon Hill with the award for their contributions and service to the staff and students of BISD.
Jon Hill with Appel Ford presented a check to the Brenham Band Parents for the Drive One 4 Ur School fundraiser.
Also discussed was a software upgrade for the business, payroll and human resources offices, which was approved.
The District has been using EdPro since 2007, but the company that makes the product is phasing this product out and moving to a product call Munis, a more advanced program. The current server is not able to handle the upgrade currently and the upgrade to the new software will take time.
The district is currently paying a service agreement of $19,244; the new agreement would be $14,848. This new system would evening enable the district to move to a paperless system.
The Board also heard a presentation regarding the TalentEd software program for the human resource department.
Director of Human Resources Christie Olivarez says that this system will be used in the hiring of new people and streamline the process so that information will only have to be entered one time, automating the process.
This will also allow employees to have access to their files, as well as enabling social media sharing to boost work of mouth recruiting and maintaining protocol
A special musical presentation was given by the Krause Elementary students.
The construction of two new elementary schools enabled the “old ideas and politics” of the past. The injustice could NOT have existed without three separate campuses. That is an undeniable fact. It was at the expense of the taxpayers, period. Yes, Teacher, it caused much harm and Senior knows that too. Unfortunately, the attitudes that created all this injustice prevail in this community. But now, with new forward thinking, there is hope on the horizon for future generations to rise above these attitudes of discrimination thru the type of education that creates open minds and superior critical thinking skills.
Anyone thought about telling the taxpayers how much more this non geographic re-alignment will cost in bussing? Gas won’t be this cheap forever. Geography should be the main consideration. That is logical and sensible. But it is clear that good sense is not in the school boards resource file. We already are paying for two new elementary schools that intentionally created this segregation, when one would have been sufficient. Thought we got past bussing students back in the 80’s. Get ready private schools, your classrooms overfloweth next year.
Lol…. Wow…. Your comment without any research or merit makes me crack up. Buses have always travelled near and far to transport kids. It’s Brenham…. I could hop, skip, and jump to the other side of town. Plus, building/updating the new Elementary buildings didn’t cause the segregation…. Outdated ideas, racism, politics, and “the way we always have” idea are what led to our schools being so divided. Thank goodness we have an amazing superintendent, school board, admin, and bisd staff rectifying decades old mistakes and bigotry. Things are changing for the best, slowly, but changing to better meet the needs of our students. Now, please stop commenting on topics you know nothing about and let the Teachers of Brenham ISD do their jobs. Thanks.
I agree with teacher. My question is, will the gradual changes be too late to save Alton?