BRENHAM ISD RELEASES RESULTS FROM SUPT. SURVEY, COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT SESSIONS
Brenham ISD has shared feedback compiled from meetings with community members and an online survey about the search for a new school superintendent.
Data provided via public information requests makes note of comments made by those who attended a series of community engagement sessions in September, as well as 450 responses on a leadership profile survey. Questions asked included what the district’s strengths are, where its biggest challenges lie, and what traits are desired in the next superintendent.
Many of the public’s responses praised the overall community pride and support for the district, strong extracurricular programs like athletics and fine arts, and caring teachers and staff.
On the opposite end, responders shared concerns regarding the district’s financial challenges, student performance levels, discipline, facilities and infrastructure, staff retention and pay, and transparency and trust.
In regards to what characteristics are ideal for the incoming superintendent, many responses asked for someone who is experienced, is approachable to and involved in the community, and is motivated to stay in Brenham and do what is best for Brenham. They also want a person of high moral character who is a strong leader, motivator, unifier and communicator and who emphasizes learning, honesty and equal treatment.
Last month, the board opted to take more time for the superintendent search, pausing it until the spring and allowing Clay Gillentine to continue serving as the acting superintendent in the interim.
Information from the open engagement sessions and survey can be seen below.
Click here to view the responses from the public engagement sessions.
Click here to view the online survey responses.
Notice that 8 administrators (that’s almost all of them) showed up to leave poor critiques and ideas on the public engagement sessions. Now notice that only two teachers did, those teachers made some really good observations and gave good ideas were given time to attend the engagement session. It is the teachers and the parents of kids that matter most in this and their voices are the least heard.
Fire all the administrators and replace them with teachers that would like a pay raise. Administrative positions should all be, 100%, coded as an internal hire.
The administrators say the number one problem is they don’t’ have new. New infrastructure. Which means everything. You name it, they want it. For BISD administrators, notice that academics, skills, behavior and ethics are no where to be found in regards to top issues or improvements needed,
The number one thing they want in a superintendent boss is this: ” Needs to be able to bridge gap, allow Brenham to become even more diverse than it already is”.
What does that mean? Is diversity a strength? How so? The most functional and productive teams I ever been on are the least diverse in morals and ethics, skin color is irrelevant. Or are they talking about skin color and LGBTQ? If so, isn’t that racist and sexist? Maybe they mean that we should have even more illegal immigrants in our schools demanding 2-3 times the education money it takes to educate a non at-risk kid. By the way, that’s the real reason they don’t want Texas to have school choice. That and rich liberals don’t want the masses to have the same kinds of access to good education as their kids, that would mean competition.
The solution, fire all the administrators and promote from within, from the ranks of teachers. Increase pay for teachers by reducing the monstrous IT department (social media is harmful anyway), athletics, and the army of employees that don’t teach. Do these things and we will be much better off.
About diversity, one of the other comments about what are the top issues within BISD was: “Lack of understanding of how diverse Brenham truly is.” There could be something to that. Just glancing at the Census data, people over 60 years old are about 80% white and non-Hispanic compared to 47% of children. That’s countywide, but there’s Burton and also 18% of enrolled students are in a private school. Jumping over to the Texas Education Agency, only 37% of children enrolled in BISD are white, 60% are economically disadvantaged, 16% are enrolled in a special ed program, and 21% appear to be enrolled in one kind of ESL program or another.
The Census says that more than half of households have an adult over 60 years old. A lot of them have moved in from elsewhere. Those are the people most likely to vote for school board members or school bonds, but nowadays that population is also the least likely to have any grandkids enrolled in their local school district. These voters’ interests are not as well aligned with the schools’ mission as they used to be. It regrettable but predictable that loyalty, engagement, and trust all seem to fade when the population that schools serve no longer seems familiar to a large share of voters.
With an aging population and more and more people moving here for retirement and pricing out the younger middle class, there’s no reason to think that these trends will reverse. Diversity is an issue in that sense because it indicates a stark generational divide. If I were a school board member, I’d look most closely at the comments from the business community because they’re the ones meeting your kids in the workforce at the kids’ level (no matter their skin color or background or whatever) so their interests do still strongly align with the schools’. They have the most to lose, most directly, most immediately, if public schools fail our kids. They can be our champions locally and even in Austin if they’re actively involved as respected partners. Their concerns were most tightly focused on academics, budget, transparency, and stability. The fundamentals. Nothing peripheral. Focus on the fundamentals and you’ll get all the peripheral issues right well-enough, too, I think.
Brenham ISD better come up with a plan when a good chunk of their teachers leave after this year. Many are tired of being the whipping boys for the latest ‘n’ greatest new initiatives and scapegoats when students don’t do their work and still fail, even after bending over backwards and three ways from Sunday to ensure the ones that don’t care pass. There are a few good teachers that are ready to quit right now.
Please keep the survey as a guide to keep searching, the interim is good for the task at hand but I wouldn’t say is he gold for the long haul.
Personallly, and from those in the community I have spoken with, it appears our interim superintendent Clay Gillentine is meeting and exceeding all those characteristics listed in the survey. Brenham ISD appears to be moving in the right direction and teachers and campus principals seem more settled since former adminstration left. Let’s hope we keep moving in the right direction without an apple cart upset with the board wanting to reopen a search and cause uncertainity for the principals, teachers, students and families right before the end of the school year with a changing of the guard.