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Thank you Mary for doing this research and offering input here. I totally agree we need to be specific (yet cast a wide net) and I like the idea of letting the firm know what date we expect the new superintendent’s contract to start. And that should drive the timeline. And I have also thought that this RFP should be shared on platforms that will reach national networks. I am comfortable with you and Amy sitting down with Mr Poolman and coming up with a better RFP for the BoT’s review and approval. You both have more experience than I do with this process and I feel that my priorities and goals have been heard by my colleagues and Mr Poolman.
I agree with Pres Weir. And I want this search to transcend Texas state lines of both the search firms and candidates experiences and current residential locations. Question for Dr Bone – Your item Bd (experience with ISD’s of 35k+ students)…are you referring to the search firm having experience fielding candidates for ISD’s of that size? If so, I’d like to reduce that to 20K students. I really want to open this opportunity up to capable firms as much as possible within reason. And I am with you on item 1 about a conflict of interest questionnaire. I want any conflicts of interest fully examined and vetted. I have my own definition of conflicts of interest and would like to know how each firm defines it.
I agree with Dr Bone on the agenda.
I’m also requesting item I-6 (GMP for CD Fulkes MS) be removed from the agenda for the 12/17/2020 meeting. I have many question and concerns about this project since my priority is always meeting the needs of students on every campus and equity. Cory and I are meeting with COO, Terry Worcester, tomorrow (12/15/2020) at 10 am so that I can begin the process of getting answers to my questions. Admin will need time to fully respond to my questions. I also think it’s important for my colleagues to understand my concerns. This item should be listed as a discussion (only) item for the 12/17/2020 meeting or moved to a future meeting.Thank you Amy for getting this posted to the message board. I see a lot of common ground among the trustees on this. I am in favor of a lot of these things you have listed (all of which came up in the 10 Dec 2020 called mtg) and though it’s hard to pick just a few as most important, I will say that reversing the negative impact on the mental health of our students that virtual learning has brought is my top priority. This is probably going to mean minimizing the number of virtual learners. I have listened to parents and students in our community for a long time and the number one thing I hear from them is fear about their SEL and a sharp increase in depression and anxiety. I have also visited multiple mental health treatment facilities in our community since September 2020 and have learned that the demand for mental health services from our adolescents now far exceeds the supply of mental health resources. We can’t continue like this.
I also see other Texas ISD’s posting on-line daily indicators (by color/numerical ratings) as a communication tool for stakeholders on each campus to monitor the Covid threat level so that if a campus is trending toward a closure, no one will be surprised. I see value in this communication.
2-way communication as Cory has described it multiple times
I’d like to look at ways to acknowledge the heroic efforts of our teachers during this school-year. I realize there could be some financial realities (RRISD relies on state funding which has been negatively impacted by the decline in the TX economy) that could prevent us from doing some things we’d like to do. Thus, we should also consider creative or outside-the-box ideas on how to do this.
Thanks for posting this and getting the legislative priorities discussion going Jenny. I am good with most of these with a few exceptions.
Fellow Trustees,
Items from the list I don’t support at this time:
The third and fourth items under “School Finance”
My thinking: On-line learning is very different from in-person, face to face (F2F) learning. RRISD has a great reputation for world class F2F instruction which has attracted families to our district for a long time. I am not supportive of expanding our business to other sectors, including on-line (virtual) learning past May 2021. There are vendors in the state of TX (including but not limited to Texas Connections Academy (TCA)) which have perfected the on-line learning model. TCA is currently available to all 5.3M public education students throughout the state. I don’t seek to take on TCA or other on-line learning vendors as competitors. I seek to return to what RRISD does well, F2F instruction. I believe our human capital, facilities, rigorous and varied course offerings and academies, extracurricular activities, partnerships in the community, reputation as an ISD etc are our competitive advantage. When we focus on what we do best, students and families will keep our campuses full. As before Covid-19, students throughout Texas who seek on-line learning have access to vendors who provide that service.
I will add that I would like to see some distance learning initiatives continue in the years to come to widen access to boutique high school courses that are not offered on every campus. For example, if we have one campus that offers Latin (foreign language), and a student at a high school that does not offer Latin would like to take it, I’d like to see that made possible via distance learning if the student’s parent/guardian and teachers approve of this.
The first item under “Governance”
My thinking: What does that language mean? I need clarification in order to offer an opinion.
All items under “School Choice”
My thinking: As stated above, I don’t support RRISD getting into the on-line learning business, thereby adding new competitors to cope with.
I’m also not interested in spending time on forcing charter schools to do or not do things. And I don’t believe we need to oppose or support vouchers. If we remain committed to RRISD being the school district of choice…building on what we do well and making improvements where needed…then families will continue to enroll their children in RRISD. I have full confidence in the competitive advantages we have in RRISD to attract and retain students. All of my children are products of public schools and I believe in public schools.
Lastly, I counted 20 proposed legislative priorities offered here to the trustees. Yesterday in a New Trustee 8 hour training session at the Admin HQ, we learned that 5 is the right number of goals for a school board to have. When there are too many goals, it’s ineffective. As I reflect on that and look at 20 proposed legislative priorities, I can’t help but wonder if our focus should be more narrow. I wonder if just focusing on protecting current funding of things we already do is the strategy we should employ. The comptroller is telling us the 2021 session will start with a $4.6B deficit. Health and Human Services and Public Ed are the two largest recipients of state funding. This reality should drive our legislative priorities.
