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 the presentation of the Spring Branch Education Foundation Annual recognition of gifts to Spring Branch. During the 2007-2008 school year, the Foundation granted in excess of $450,000 to Spring Branch to support programs, teachers, and students including student scholarships.
Our second special presentation was recognition of the employee of the month. Tonight rather than one Employee of the Month, we honored the service of the hundreds of Spring Branch employees who worked tirelessly before, during, and after Hurricane Ike. Our October 2008 Employees of the Month were chosen by their co-workers to represent each of the District's operational support areas. Prior to the presentation of this recognition, the video below was played (click the video to play it).
Our October 2008 Volunteers of the Month are Sophia Blackmun, Rhonda Fiot, and Paula Mikulski, who were invaluable as volunteers to the success of Spring Branch's first summer French camp.
Our final special presentation recognized our National Merit Semifinalists, National Hispanic Recognition Recipients, and National Achievement Scholars.
The President of the Spring Branch Education Association, spoke during to thank the Board for our decision on make-up days related to Hurricane Ike.
We next had a public hearing on the District's proposed 2008 tax rate. We had one person appear to discuss his belief that the tax rate should not be increased to pay for the 2007 bond. In fact, while the printed and published material concerning the bond reflected a likely 6.95 cent increase in the tax rate, because of valuation increases and assuming that the remaining assumptions hold, the maximum increase due to the bond will only be 5.75 cents.
We then had our Board member liaison reports (each Board member serves in a liaison capacity). Here is the material I provided in my Technology liaison report, and here is the information Wayne Schaper, Sr., presented in his Facilities liaison report concerning the status of the various projects related to the 2007 bond (Hollibrook Elementary, Westwood Elementary, Buffalo Creek Elementary, Cedar Brook Elementary, and Treasure Forest Elementary, Memorial Middle, the Transition Campus at the SBEC campus, Ridgecrest Elementary, Rummel Creek Elementary, Spring Shadows Elementary and Terrace Elementary, Bendwood, Landrum Middle, Miscellaneous Athletics projects, Science 4x4 program, Tully Stadium and Don Coleman Coliseum, and Grob Stadium and the Natatorium).
We then received the Quarterly Investment Report as of September 30, 2008. Next we had the required annual review by the Board of Trustees of policies for reporting child abuse and neglect.
We adopted the Legal and Local Policies contained in TASB Update 83, and we had first readings of AE (Local) Educational Philosophy/Mission Statement, and FD (Local) Admissions.
Our action items on the Agenda included the approval of the Budget Status Summary Report with Budget Amendments as of September 30, 2008, and the Facility Improvement Program Monthly Status Report with Project Detail Changes as of September 30, 2008. As we do in every monthly meeting, we also approved the awarding of a number of contracts. Our final action item was the approval of the Resolution setting the 2008 Tax Rate.
We concluded our meeting with the approval of the items on our Consent Agenda.
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