BRENHAM SCHOOL BOARD HEARS COVID UPDATE

  

Brenham Public School students will return to class this fall to increased cleaning of high touch surfaces, but no mask mandate as last year.  Jamie Woodall, Director of Health & Safety for the District presented a COVID update to the School Board during their Monday noon meeting.  Masks will be available on all campuses, but wearing them will be optional, because of a mandate from Governor Greg Abbott.  The one location were wearing a mask is mandatory are school buses.  Compared to last year, Woodall said this year there is very little guidance coming from the TEA and UIL, all they will say is it is a local decision.  The top 3 results from almost 900 people responding to a survey from the district were common sense cleanliness, return to normalcy, and personal responsibility.  Woodall said that after meeting with Washington County Health Authority Dr. William Loesch, that she does expect an increase in general illness this year after immune systems were not exercised in the past year.  Another change that parents will see is in the COVID Dashboard.  It is now planned that each campus will have a separate dashboard on their website, so that parents can better tell what is going on with COVID on their campus.

Director of Business & Finance, Kim Weatherby, presented the trustees with a budget and tax rate workshop. She started off by saying that the district is now considered by the state to be a chapter 49 district.  Like many districts in our area, the district is now considered to be a “property rich district” as property values have gone up, while student enrollment has remained flat.  According to the numbers, local property values have increased 9.4% over last year.  With this in mind, the district is looking at setting the tax rate over 5 cents lower, at .9084 for maintenance and operations and .08 for interest and sinking.  That makes the total tax rate .98840 compared to last year’s rate of 1.0458.  An average homeowner in Washington County with a home and property valued at $219,000, would pay an additional $36 in taxes.  The public meeting for comments on the proposed budget and tax rate is set for Monday, August 16th at 6:00 PM at Brenham High School.

In other action, the School Board approved purchasing the Imagine Learning on-line software for Language, Literacy, Reading and Math.  The software will be utilized for grade levels k through 12 for remediation.