BRENHAM SCHOOL BOARD DISCUSSES NEW LAW
The Brenham School board held a workshop meeting at noon today (Tuesday) to discuss among other things House Bill 2610 and how it will affect the next school calendar. The bill changes the required school year from 180 days to 75,600 instructional minutes. That works out 420 minutes per day for a 180 day school year. The school day in Brenham is currently 450 minutes, and Superintendent Walter Jackson said there are no plans to change that. He stated that the new law will give the district more flexibility is setting the calendar. The district is looking at ending the school year in May instead of it stretching into June. They are also looking into giving students the entire Thanksgiving week off instead of the current 3 days. Jackson emphasized that the law does not affect teacher contracts, so he is looking at adding more professional training days or in service days for the teachers. Board Vice-president Melvin Ehlert added that the new flexibility should be use in maximizing student performance, one of the district’s goals. Board Secretary Susan Jenkins reminded the board that they need to keep the parent’s work schedules in mind also.
Another topic discussed at the board workshop was equalizing the demographics at the three elementary school. Kim Strauss, Director of Information Technology said that they had run several computerized mock selections using current student information to see how adding the distance to a campus would affect the results.
Strauss stated that because the three campuses are all within the city limits and that Krause Elementary is only 4 miles from Brenham Elementary, that distance from a child’s home to a campus should not be used as a factor in assigning an elementary school. The district plans on assigning a campus next year to all incoming pre-K and Kindergarten students. All current students will not be moved to a different campus.
Financial Director Kim Horne gave a brief rundown of some items affecting the budget for the next school year. She said that they are looking at going to two pay periods per month instead of the current one, but that an additional staffer would need to be added to handle the extra work involved. Receiving two paychecks a month could be an incentive for recruiting teachers, particularly those just out of college. Horne also stated that the average daily attendance during the fall was 4,628. That is up 43 over the same period last year. If those numbers remain up, it could mean an additional 300 thousand dollars to the district from the State.
Today’s (Tuesday’s) meeting was only a workshop session so no action was taken on the items discussed. The next scheduled meeting of the Brenham School board will be Tuesday, January 19th at 6pm at the High School.