Mike Falick's Blog

Summer is Here! Here's a Recap of the School Year that was 2008-2009

Today is the last day of school for Spring Branch students.  What a long, strange year this has been starting with Hurricane Ike, and ending with the swine flu, and the April flood.  But our District weathered each of these challenges.

Our preliminary State testing data shows significant improvement over last year marking what will likely be the 6th consecutive year of improving results (more on this in an upcoming post).  A record 87% of our students took the SAT or ACT test this year, and our results improved.  We continue to perform well above the State averages in every academic measurement, and we are moving toward fulfilling our mission to be the premiere college focused district in Texas.  We also continued our progress toward meeting the goals outlined in the District's Five Year Educational Plan, and beginning in the Fall, we will start our Early College program.  Also this Fall, the District's new homework policy, which was finalized in February, will go into effect.

While there is much work left to be done in school finance reform, the recently completed Legislative Session will bring modest but welcome changes to the accountability system, and perhaps an additional $2.5m per year in funding.  And our Pre-K program was repeatedly held up as a beacon of success by not only our legislators, but also legislators from around the State.

The 2007 Bond program continued to move forward with groundbreaking ceremonies at Hollibrook and Westwood, with two more scheduled to break ground soon.  The 80+ new buses purchased were all on the road this year. 

Technology integration continues to be a focus in the District.  We are adding Smartboards at every campus, and the District is now fully wireless at every campus.

Our communication efforts continue to advance.  The District's website has become an excellent communication vehicle this year.  Our call out system proved invaluable during the Hurricane when many people only had a working cell phone for receiving updates.  We produced the first Annual Report  to the Community, and the District's branding initiative is underway.  We also had a record number of Good Neighbors, mentors, educational and facilities task force participants, and community and business partners this year.

The District received another flawless audit report this year.  While we face a deficit budget this year, we have continued to increase efficiencies throughout the District through cost reductions.

As I visit our schools in the District throughout the year, I am always impressed by the level of teaching and student engagement that I see at every level in our District.  While there is always room to improve, Spring Branch continues to be a great District thanks to the hard work of our students, teachers, administrators, and of course, our parents and our community.

Have a great, restful Summer!  You've earned it!

Graduation Day at Westchester Academy for International Studies

Graduation for Westchester Academy for International Studies was held tonight at 7 p.m.

The program from tonight's graduation, which lists all of the graduates, is available here.

Graduation for Westchester Academy for International Studies was held tonight at 7 p.m.

The program from tonight's graduation, which lists all of the graduates, is available here.

Graduation Day at Spring Branch's School of Choice

Graduation at School of Choice was held this afternoon at 4:00p.

The program from today's graduation, which lists all of the graduates, is available here.

Today is Graduation Day for Memorial, Northbrook, Spring Woods, and Stratford High Schools

Congratulations to today's Spring Branch ISD graduates from our 4 comprehensive high schools. 

This is my 6th graduation as a Board member, and it is always one of my favorite days of the year.

You can click on the name of each school below to see the program for its graduation ceremony: Memorial, Northbrook, Spring Woods, and Stratford.

Timetric: A Free Website for Accessing and Analyzing Data Over Time

I recently came across Timetric, a very useful website for data access and analysis.  Timetric, as described from its website more fully below, allows you to post your own data over time as well as access data posted by others.   Timetric is a free service but does require you to register to use the service.

An example appears below (click on the image to enlarge).

 

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What's Timetric for?

Timetric's here to help you make sense of data. If you think about it, most of the numbers we come across every day are things like temperatures, prices, rates, volumes: numbers which vary over time. That's what Timetric focuses on: graphing, tracking and comparing the movements of data over time.

The fancy name for this sort of thing is time series analysis. We're building tools to make it as easy to build models on top of time series — updated whenever the data they're based on is updated — as it is to use a spreadsheet.

Senate Bill 175 Gets Watered Down in the House: Minimal Reform Yields Top 10% Light

For the entering class of 2009 at the University of Texas, 81% were in the top 10% and 8.7% were out-of-state.  That left just over 10.3% for the entire rest of the students in the State of Texas who were not in the top 10% of their graduating classes.  And that is why the Top 10% rule mandating admission on the single criteria of class rank has been in such serious need of reform.

Senate Bill 175 by Senator Shapiro (summarized here initially, and here after the bill was heard by the Senate) would have gone a long way toward reforming this mandate to give the University of Texas, and Texas A&M, more discretion to determine its student enrollment criteria.

Today, Senate Bill 175 was taken up by the Texas House, and was significantly weakened.  Top 10% admission under the House amendments will be capped at 75% of the entering freshman class (as opposed to the 81% today).  An additional 10% of the class can be from out-of-state.  That leaves only 15% of the entering class that can be considered on criteria other than the Top 10%, including such criteria as proficiency in the arts, athletics, speech, debate, SAT/ACT scores, and any other criteria showing that a student is a well-rounded and college-ready.  That's 15% vs. 10.3% today.  And there are a lot of restrictions on that 15% with more being added through the additional amendments.  This minimal improvement means that the brain drain of students leaving Texas will continue.

Below is a summary from Paul Burka (Texas Monthly) on the House amendments.

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Deal struck on top 10%

posted by paulburka at 2:59 AM

Here are the elements of the deal:

* Automatic admissions capped at 75% of resident admits for UT only, starting with the entering class of 2011 and ending in 2015.

* UT may not use legacy status in its admissions process.

* Cap % of non-residents enrolled in the freshman class at 10%.

* Improve notification provisions to students and parents.

* New reforms do not apply if UT admits fewer students from high schools in the bottom quintile of college-going rates, based on a two-year rolling average.

* New reforms do not apply if a court order or board of regents prohibits the use of race or ethnicity in the admissions process.

* New reforms do not apply if UT-Austin fails to improve outreach and recruitment of undergrads from other general academic teaching institutions to their graduate programs.

The fifth item above — “Improve notification provisions to students and parents” — is crucial. One of the problems UT has in recruiting minority students is that school counselors spend far more time on discipline and dropouts than they spend on college advising. Many students in urban high schools never learn that they have an automatic place at the University of Texas if they finish in the top 10% of their class.

 

Something You Can't See in Houston: The Core of the Milky Way Galaxy Passing Over Texas

The video below shows a time lapse image of night sky as it passes over the 2009 Texas Star Party in Fort Davis, Texas. The galactic core of Milky Way is brightly displayed.

Galactic Center of Milky Way Rises over Texas Star Party from William Castleman on Vimeo.

A Call to Action on the School Accountability Bills (HB3/SB3)

As you can see from the clock above, the current Legislative Session is drawing to a close.  A Conference Committee has been appointed to discuss the differences between the House and Senate versions of the school accountability bills, House Bill 3 and Senate Bill 3.  (Click here,and here for prior posts on these bills).

Spring Branch's Superintendent, Dr. Duncan Klussmann, has issued the letter below (click the images to enlarge or click here to download the letter).  Please take the time to read Dr. Klussmann's letter, and please contact the members of the Conference Committee to express any concerns you might have with the Bills.

Recap of Tonight's Regular Monthly Board Meeting

Our Board held its regular monthly meeting tonight.  Here's a recap of the issues discussed, and actions taken on tonight's Agenda.

We had four special presentations this evening.  Our first special presentation was recognition of Marilyn White, MUNIS Project Manager, as our May 2009 Employee of the Month.  As stated in the Board Agenda item describing the work done by Ms. White:

The exceptional efforts of this month’s Employee of the Month, enabled SBISD to smoothly undertake the year-long planning and implementation of the MUNIS software system that reached a new milestone on May 1st with Payroll going live without a hitch!
This amazing and very dedicated SBISD employee has a “whatever it takes” spirit and embraced the project with zest and an incessant smile and positive attitude, even when others may have been overwhelmed by the scope of the project. She worked through every weekend, Winter Break and Spring Break to get the job done right and planned for and communicated with users across the district about untold numbers of meetings, trainings, and help sessions. She is a trouble-shooter par excellence and has done a fantastic job interfacing as our lead representative with the software vendor.

Our second special presentation recognized Suzie Jones, a volunteer at Landrum Middle School, as our May 2009 Volunteer of the Month.  As stated in the Agenda:

Susie Jones is a member of the Leadership Houston’s Class XXV that planned and conducted a college-preparation program for 30 students and their parents at Landrum Middle School in 2007. Suzie helped read the 50 applications, select participants, speak at the event and raise scholarship monies that are promised to the students when they graduate from SBISD and enroll in college. She has continued as a monthly mentor to the students who are now high school freshmen.

Mrs. Jones was so impressed with the students and their parents that she committed to continue the program for two more years. She has been the driving force behind the program; inviting fellow LH class members to help, and recruiting new members. She has continued to work with Principal Pratts to arrange a college tour of the University of Houston as part of the program, to arrange for speakers on topics such as planning your future, financial aide for college and making good choices.

Our third special presentation recognized Hispanic Heritage Month with a performance by students from Landrum Middle School's Ballet Folklorico.

Our final special presentation recognized Spring Branch's student athletes who advanced to state level competition in UIL athletics.

Our next agenda item was Citizens Participation.  We had two people speak tonight.  The first was a gentleman from Houston Community College who invited Spring Branch to send 100 juniors and seniors to the HCC Chancellors Energy Conference in October.  The second was David Cornell, a Wilchester resident, who spoke about the Wilchester Task Force.

We next held the first of two Public Hearings on the Proposed FY 2010 Spring Branch ISD Budget.  Our second public hearing will be held at 7:00p on June 22, 2009.  Click here to view the PowerPoint presentation shown immediately prior to the public hearing.

We then had our Board member Liaison Reports (each Board member serves in a liaison capacity).  Click here for the documents I provided in my Legislative update, here for the documents I provided in my Technology update, and here for the materials provided by Wayne Schaper, Sr., in his Facilities update.

In addition to the Liaison reports, the Board received its Quarterly Investment Report, Quarterly Energy Report, and Quarterly Report on the Five Year Educational Plan.

We then adopted the following Board policy: DNA (Local) Performance Appraisal: Evaluation of Teachers.

Our action items on the Agenda included the approval of the Budget Status Summary with Budget Amendments as of April 30, 2009 and the Facility Improvement Program Monthly Status Report as of April 30, 2009.  As we do in every monthly meeting, we also approved the awarding of a number of contracts.

We next approved the Board's Calendar for 2009-2010.

Our final two action items tonight were the approval of a Memorandum of Understanding between SBISD and HCC for the Spring Branch Early College Program, and the Elementary and Secondary Student/Parent Handbooks and Student Code of Conduct for 2009-2010.  Click here to review the draft Elementary Student/Parent Handbook and here to review the draft Secondary Student/Parent Handbook.  (These are large files that may take several minutes to download, depending on your connection speed).

We concluded tonight's meeting by approving our Consent Agenda.

Meeting Notice for May 18, 2009 House Public Education Committee

Here is the notice for tomorrow's House Public Education Committee meeting (click on the image to go to the House Public Education Committee meeting notice with links to each bill).