Mike Falick's Blog

Recap of Tonight's (January 24, 2011) 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.

Our meeting started with Special Presentations to recognize the outstanding work of the following:

Claudia Sequeira, Adaptive Behavior Special Education Assistant at Ridgecrest Elementary, as our January 2011 Employee of the Month.  Click below to watch a video honoring Ms. Sequiera.

Chris Papouras, a mentor at Spring Woods High School and Spring Oaks Middle School, as our January 2011 Volunteer of the Month.  Click below to watch a video honoring this deserving volunteer.

Memorial High School, Stratford High School, and Westchester Academy for International Studies which earned the  ACT Council's College Readiness Award College Readiness.

Spring Branch ISD  Early College Program Students who earned certificates of acievement for academic excellence from Houston Community College.

Finally, January is School Board Appreciation Month.  The District honored Board members by having students present each Board member with a piece of art created by the student.  The artwork I received, from a student at Rummel Creek, is below (Click the image to enlarge).

Next on our agenda was  Citizens Participation.  We had a number of speakers tonight.  First was Noel Flyn, representing the AFT, who spoke about their legislative agenda and support for appropriate funding for public education.  We also had a number of speakers comment on the District's proposed acquisition of the old Kendall Branch Library and property.  (See below for more information about this item).

Next we held a joint public hearing with the District Improvement Team to discuss the 2010 Academic Indicator System Report results which show that the District continues to perform well above the State in every area, and that our college focus is producing very real results for our students.  The information presented can be found here.

We then had the first reading of GE (Local) Relation with Parent Organizations, and we adopted the following three policies:

• DCD (Local) Employment Practices At-Will Employees
• EB (Local) School Year
• EIC (Local) Academic Achievement: Class Ranking

We then approved our Consent Agenda.  The Kendall Branch property item was pulled from the Consent Agenda by Trustee Theresa Kosmoski for separate discussion.  That discussion, which included comments in favor of the acquisition from all the trustees who spoke, concluded with a 6-1 vote to approve the acquisition.  Information about the acquisition is available here.

We concluded tonight's meeting with a lengthy discussion on the Five Year Educational Plan, including the 2010 Five Year Plan Annual Report.  The powerpoint used as part of the discussion is here, and the entire report can be downloaded here.

 

Recap of the Board's January 10, 2011, Workshop Meeting

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

Our first agenda item continued the Board's discussion on the development of the District's Internal Accountability System.  The System is designed to ensure that every student is on the path toward college-readiness by graduation.  This part of the System deals strictly with academic readiness.

Our next agenda item continued the difficult conversation about the FY 2012 Budget (2011-2012 school year).  Tonight, we discussed the Comptroller's estimate that shows the State's projected deficit at somewhere between $23 billion and $27 billion.  We also discussed a potential payment plan to incentivize early announcements of pending retirements.  Documents concerning both of these issues can be found here.

We then had a lengthy discussion about the Board's Liaison Roles.  In the end, the recommendation was to largely leave things unchanged.

We also had second reading and proposed amendments on three Board Policies, DCD (Local) Employment Practices At-Will Employment,  EB (Local) School Year, and  EIC (Local) Academic Achievement: Class Ranking.  These policies will move to final reading at the Board's meeting on January 24, 2011.

Our final agenda item tonight was a review and approval of the Schematic Design & Design Development  of the New Housman Elementary School Replacement Project.

Recap of the Board's September 13, 2010, Workshop Meeting

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

We have significantly modified our agendas, both for the workshops and the regular monthly meetings, to provide far more time to discuss the District's academic program as we prepare to create the next Five Year Education Plan.  As a result, each month we have a presentation and discussion during our workshop meeting that is then applied to Spring Branch during the regular monthly meeting.  The intent is to provide leadership that will inform the community and the Five Year Planning group on the Board's educational direction for the District.

Tonight, we had a lengthy presentation and discussion on norm referenced testing.  During the last school year (2009-2010), the District implemented norm referenced testing for our 2nd graders in the form of the Stanford test.  The intent of this testing is to provide additional data that can allow us to determine our student's success.  This is especially important as we look to the significant limitations on the usefulness of the data from the TAKS test, which does not appear to correlate to either college readiness or future success.

We had two additional discussion items.  The first was a Discussion of the DProposed Legislative Priorities and Positions for the 82nd Session of the Texas Legislature.  The District's sole priority for the upcoming session, which begins on January 11, 2011, will be as follows:

The District’s goal is that all Spring Branch ISD students will graduate on time from high school, and go on to complete a 2 year technical degree, or a 2 year associates degree, or a 4 year degree.

In order to support this goal, SBISD believes the current funding system needs to:

• Maintain current levels of state funding per student for Spring Branch ISD.
• Revert competitive grants to formula distribution.
• Allow school districts to index local revenue to inflation and provide that, if a district’s budget is not increased by more than CPI, the district may approve a tax rate to fund its budget without the need for a rollback election.

We also have a number of Board Legislative Positions that can be reviewed here.

Our final discussion item tonight was a discussion on a proposal by Mary Landrum to create the Leadership SBISD Project.  The Board was very much in favor of the idea but agreed to postpone implementation until after the development of the next 5 Year Educational Plan.

Finally, we approved two revisions to the Board Calendar tonight - we added a meeting next Monday, September 20, 2010, at 5:00p to do our required 3 hour team building.  This meeting will center around a book study on Diane Ravitch's excellent book - The Death and Life of the Great American School System.  We also rescheduled our November regular monthly meeting from November 22, 2010, to November 15, 2010.

Texas PTA Honors State Representative Dwayne Bohac

[So, as you know, I am way behind on updating my blog.  Among the many, many updates I have wanted to post for some time is this one.]

In April, I had the privilege to attend the Texas PTA's presentation to Spring Branch's own State Rep. Dwayne Bohac in which he was named to the Texas PTA's Statewide Legislative Honor Roll for his leadership on public education issues during the 81st Session.

Recap of Tonight's (March 22, 2010) 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.

Our meeting started with Special Presentations to recognize the outstanding work of the following:

• David Cain, Webmaster, and Melissa Wiland, Web Designer, as our March 2010 Employees of the Month.  Click below to watch a video honoring Mr. Cain and Ms. Wiland.

Alicia Lopez, Maria Hernandez, Juana Perez, and Norma Cardenas, volunteers at Northbrook Middle School, as our March 2010 Volunteers of the Month.  Click below to watch a video honoring these deserving volunteers.

• Recognition of Samuel Karnes and Westwood Elementary, recipient of the Texas Department of State Health Services Award of Achievement.

Next on our agenda was Citizens Participation.  No one spoke during this portion of the meeting tonight.

We then had our Board member liaison reports (each Board member serves in a liaison capacity). Click here for the materials provided by Wayne Schaper, Sr., in his Facilities update.

We then adopted the following policies:

• FNA (Local) Student Rights and Responsibilities: Student Expression.
• CQ (Local) Electronic Communication and Data Management
  

Our action items on the Agenda included the approval of the following items:

• Facility Improvement Program Monthly Status Report with Project Budget Changes as of February 28, 2010.
• Contract Awards.
• Schematic Design/Design Development for Fire Alarm/Life Safety, Access Control, and Video Surveillance Systems at the Administration Building.

We then approved our Consent Agenda.

We concluded the meeting with a lengthy discussion regarding the redesign of our School of Choice which will now have a much broader mission and be known as the Academy of Choice.  The binder the Board received concerning the new Academy of Choice can be reviewed by clicking the following links:, Binder Part 1, Binder Part 2, Night School Brochure, Academy of Choice Brochure, Academy of Choice 9th Grade Program, Academy of Choice Teachers Wanted Brochure. 

We also had discussion concerning the FY 2011 Budget and FY 2011 Budget Process.

Recap of the Board's March 8, 2010, Workshop Meeting

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

We had three discussion items on tonight's agenda.  The first item was a presentation and discussion of the schematic design/design development for the fire alarm/life safety, access control, and video surveillance systems at the Administration Building.

Our second discussion item concerned potential participation by Spring Branch in the D.A.T.E. (DIstrict Awards for Teacher Excellence) Grant Program.  As I articulated during the meeting, I am not a fan of this Grant because it is based solely on TAKS scores.  I do not believe that any performance based pay should be based on a single factor, and I feel particularly strongly that TAKS, as the only measure, creates an incentive that is inconsistent with the goals of our Five Year Plan.

Our final discussion item examined some fascinating data about Spring Branch prepared by ERG concerning the District's Five Year Plan.  Spring Branch ranks #1 in the ERG data on SAT/ACT which shows the success of our college-focus in the Five Year Plan.  However, the data also show that we have work left to do in both education and financial efficiency.

We also had three action items on the agenda tonight.  First, we considered on second reading amendments to FNA (Local) Student Rights and Responsibilities: Student Expression and CQ (Local) Electronic Communication and Data Management.  All of the proposed amendments to both policies were accepted.

Our meeting concluded with the approval of revisions to the SPARK Contract for Cedar Brook Elementary.

Recap of Tonight's (February 22, 2010) 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.

Our meeting started with Special Presentations to recognize the outstanding work of the following:

• Sonya Ramirez, the Communities in Schools Liaison for Edgewood Elementary, as our February 2010 Employee of the Month.  Click here to watch a video honoring Ms. Ramirez.
• Brent Favor, a volunteer at Spring Woods High School, as our February 2010 Volunteer of the Month.  Click here to watch a video honoring Mr. Favor.
• Recognition of Dr. Jennifer Blaine who has been selected for the Broad Superintendents Academy.  For more information on Dr. Blaine's selection, please click here.
• Energy Rebate SCORE Check Presentation.
• Recognition of National School Counseling Week.
• Recognition of SBISD All-State Orchestra and All-State Choir Students.
• Recognition of SBISD Schools Earning the National Center for Educational Achievement 2009 Just for the Kids Campaign for Higher Performing Schools in Texas Designation.
• Recognition of Black History Month.

Next on our agenda was Citizens Participation.  We had four people speak during Citizens Participation.  Ms. Schindler gave the District an award as her company's Vendor of the Year.  Catherine Barchfield and Chris Hajovsky spoke in favor of the Board's Resolution on Housing Tax Credits.  And Chuck Davidson asked the Board to create two task forces, one to look at high school schedules and the other to look at creating a 9th Grade campus.

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

We also received the Quarterly Energy Report for October - December 2009 and the Quarterly Investment Report as of December 31, 2009.

We then had first reading on the following policy:

• FNA (Local) Student Rights and Responsibilities: Student Expression.

We also adopted the following policies:

• Legal and Local Policies - TASB Policy Update 86.
• EJ (Local) Academic Guidance Program.  I am very pleased to see the addition of post-secondary planning, college advising, and the requirement for advisory periods for all secondary campuses as I firmly believe that these items are critical to achieving our District's goal of being the premiere college focused district in Texas.
  
• CH (Local) Purchasing and Acquisition.
  

Our action items on the Agenda included the approval of the following items:

• Facility Improvement Program Monthly Status Report with Project Budget Changes as of January 31, 2010.
• Contract Awards.
• 2010-2011 Enrollment Projections.
• 2010-2011 Staffing Definitions and Guidelines for Teaching Positions.
• Schematic Design/Design Development for the Memorial High School Science 4x4 Program.
• Schematic Design/Design Development for the New Wilchester Elementary School.
• Board Resolution  Opposing the Application for Housing Tax Credits.
  

We then approved our Consent Agenda.

We concluded the meeting with a lengthy discussion regarding the Annual Report to the Board on the Five Year Educational Plan.  The Report itself can be viewed by clicking here (this is a very large file).  In addition, the PowerPoint presentation given to the Board tonight can be viewed by clicking here for Part 1 and here for Part 2.

Recap of the Board's February 8, 2010, Workshop Meeting

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

We had four discussion items on tonight's agenda.  The first item was a presentation and discussion of the schematic design and design development for the Memorial High School Science 4x4 program.  Click here for the design documents.

Our second discussion item was an update on the Tully/Don Coleman Coliseum project.

Our next item continued our ongoing discussion regarding the cuts necessary to balance the 2010-2011 Budget.

Our final discussion item was a discussion of the Board's approach to applications for affordable housing projects.  For the past two legislative sessions, one of the Board's Legislative Positions has been to support legislation to limit the density of government supported low income housing.  Currently, we have a number of applications for these types of projects.  The Board's discussion focused on the appropriate input that the Board should provide in response to these applications.

Our meeting concluded with second reading and consideration of amendments to the following: 

• TASB Policy Update 86
• EJ (Local) Academic Guidance Program
• CH (Local) Purchasing and Acquistion

Recap of Tonight's (January 19, 2010) 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.

Our meeting started with Special Presentations to recognize the outstanding work of the following:

• Roshen Daroowala and Elsie Rao as our January 2010 Employees of the Month.
• Dan Redwine as our January 2010 Volunteer of the Month.
• Paige Hershey as the recipient of the National Interscholastic Athletic Administrators Association Distinguished Service Award.
• Rory Frazee as the recipient of the Texas Tennis Coaches Association's Coach of the Year Award.
• Anne Daily as the recipient of the Texas Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (TAHPERD) Honor Award.
• School Board Recognition Month.  As part of this presentation, each Board member was given a work of art created by a Spring Branch student which was incredibly moving for me.

Our first agenda item was a Joint Public Hearing for the 2009 Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS).  While the results show there is still much work to be done, I am very pleased to see the continued improvement of our students, and am especially pleased to see the significant increase in the number of our students taking the SAT and ACT exams.

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

We then had first reading on the following policies:

• TASB Policy Update 86
  
• EJ (Local) Academic Guidance Program
  
• CH (Local) Purchasing and Acquisition
  

Our action items on the Agenda included the approval of the following items:

• contract awards
  
• order setting school board election
• Resolution calling for a joint election with the City of Piney Point and Spring Branch Independent School District and order approving joint electionownload 1-19-10 Regular Bd Mtg Agenda(3) 88-90

We then approved our Consent Agenda.

We concluded the meeting with two lengthy discussion items.  The first was a presentation and discussion of the schematic design and design development for the new Wilchester Elementary School.  Click here for the design and schematic documents reviewed by the Board.

Finally, we continued the difficult discussion regarding the cuts necessary to balance the 2010-2011 budget.

Recap of Tonight's (December 14, 2009) 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.

Our meeting started with Special Presentations to recognize the outstanding work of the following:

• Mr. Jesse Ochoa as our December 2009 Employee of the Month.
• Patrick Guerra as our December 2009 Volunteer of the Month.  Mr. Guerra, who is a student at Stratford High School, is the District's first student ever to be selected as the Volunteer of the Month.
• Stratford High School's receipt of the ACT College Readiness Award
• SBISD Administration Building as a 2009 Anti-Defamation League No Place for Hate Honoree
  

We then had our Board member Liaison Reports (each Board member serves in a liaison capacity).  We also received a report of School Board Member Training for 2009.

Our action items on the Agenda included the approval of the following items:

• Approval of the budget status summary report with budget amendments as of November 30, 2009.
• Approval of the facility improvement program monthly status report with project detail changes as of November 30, 2009.
• Approval of the contract awards.
• Approval of the schematic design and design development for the new Meadow Wood Elementary School.  Click here for the design and schematic documents reviewed by the Board.
• Approval of the schematic design and design development for the new Edgewood Elementary School.  Click here for the design and schematic documents reviewed by the Board.
• Approval of the schematic design and design development for the South Transition Campus at Westchester Academy.

We concluded the meeting by approving our consent agenda.