BOARD NOTES

A Summary of the April 11, 2011 Tyler ISD Board of Trustees Workshop Meeting

Board Approves Certification of Unopposed Candidate

The Board of Trustees approved a Certification of Unopposed Candidate for Single Member District 2.  Texas Election Code, Chapter 2, Subsection C, Section 2.052 allows a school district not to conduct an election in a single member district where a candidate is unopposed. During the February 17, 2011, Board Meeting, Trustees approved an Order to Call a General Election on May 14, 2011, to fill trustee positions for Single Member Districts 2. The three-year terms of office for Single Member District 2 will expire in May. Rev. Orenthia Mason is the current trustee for Single Member District 2.

Board Approves Order Declaring Cancellation of Trustee Election and Election of Unopposed Candidate

The Board of Trustees approved an Order of Cancellation of Election and certify the election of Rev. Orenthia Mason as trustee for Single Member District 2 for a term of three years expiring in May 2014.

Board Approves Order Establishing Election Day Polling Places; Dates, Times, and Locations for Early Voting By Personal Appearance 

The Board of Trustees approved the Order Establishing Election Day Polling Places; Dates, Times and Locations for Early Voting by Personal Appearance for the May 14, 2011 General Election for School Board Trustee for Single Member District 4.  Smith County, City of Tyler, Whitehouse Independent School District and Tyler Independent School District have entered into an agreement to hold a joint election conducted by the Smith County Election Administrator. By coordinating efforts, the result has been the elimination of duplicate costs and labor, shared polling locations and a more convenient process for voters.

Board Approves Thin Client System Purchase

The Board of Trustees approved a contract with INX, Inc. in the amount of $1,878,944.17 to provide a turnkey virtual desktop system hardware, software, installation, configuration and training.  The proposed system price includes 3 years hardware and software maintenance. An analysis of the Return On Investment (ROI) of the proposed system versus continuing to purchase the district standard student PC shows the ROI of 102% and a payback in 7.7 months.  Funding for the proposed system is provided by E-rate refunds, CTE and funds previously designated by the Board for school bus purchases and special maintenance projects.

Demographic Update 2011

Dr. Pat Guseman and Dr. Stacey Tepera with Population and Survey Analysts (PASA) presented to the Board of Trustees information about a new demographic report compiled by the company.  Dr. Guseman said the data is used by the school districts for long range planning, growth projections, and possible redistricting.  She shared growth of Tyler ISD compared to other districts in Smith County as well as growth in the district's economically disadvantaged population.  She also shared how the growth of kindergarten students in the past years has indicated a healthy growth at the elementary level. 

Data from a new source was shared that showed 23 percent of the population in Tyler ISD are employed in the educational services and health care professions.  She also discussed the current economy and unemployment as well as projected employment figures and the local economy factors that are considerations of the proposed data. 

Dr. Guseman shared housing characteristics and how that impacts a changing student population.  She identified the largest residential single family, multi-family and condo developments throughout the Tyler area.  She shared projected new housing occupancies for various increments for the next one, five and ten years.  She shared that on the average, there is fewer than one child per home in the Tyler ISD boundary.  She said you have to realize that numerous young couples and senior citizens are also home owners so it lowers the average number of students per home.  She projects the student ratio for Tyler ISD is lower than the state average because of the large number of retirees that live in the community.  She shared three scenarios of growth for projected enrollment which included low, medium and high growth potentials. 

Dr. Tepera presented projections for each campus using the current attendance zones for the next one, five, and ten year increments.  She said all elementary students projected to be attending next year compared to all elementary school, the district has 90% of functional capacity across the district.  When looking at utilization per campus there is a wide discrepancy from 65 percent to more than 100 percent.  The middle school comparison varies as well with 53 percent at one campus and 137 percent at another.  She said the high school comparison shows 100 percent utilization by both campuses, but when transfers are factored into the equation, 83 percent is at one campus and more than 100 percent is at the other.

Dr. Reid shared with the Board that the full demographic update will be available on the Tyler ISD website very soon.

Discussion of Long Range Planning

Steve Hulsey, with Corgan Associates, Inc., presented to the Board of Trustees information about long range planning relevant to possible district program initiatives.  He compared Tyler ISD to eight other school districts to show the number of campuses, the student size, as well as the types of facilities such as ninth grade centers, CTE programs, early college programs, and non-traditional programs.

Through this comparison data, he shared that the average size of high schools is 2562, middle schools is 774, and elementary schools is 611.

He shared several scenarios to the Board including variations of a one, two and three high school feeder pattern.  He compared these types of models to Allen ISD, Hurst-Euless-Bedford ISD and Birdville ISD.  He shared the pros and cons of each as well as the operational costs associated with each of the facilities.

Hulsey shared that Grand Prairie ISD has a model where the third high school is a specialized school for the Career and Technology Education courses, STEM, early college and other programs where extra-curricular activities are not offered except at the two high schools, also considered a student's base school.  Dr. Reid said this plan would increase costs at the high school level so that an option to reduce expenses at the middle school level may need to be considered.  Dr. Reid stressed the importance of making long range plans for the district.

It was brought up for discussion as to how would this long range planning picture be addressed.  Is the middle school or the high school issues addressed first?  And how do we want to include the community in these discussions.  Dr. Reid said the intention of today is to start conversations about where do we want to head as a district, and these scenarios are a good discussion starting point.