Consolidating the school districts

October 5, 2018

City council met in special session Monday, October 1, 2018.

The agenda indicates that they plan to discuss and take action on council’s legislative agenda with the state.

One of the items to be considered is:

That ought to ruffle some feathers at the school districts.

We deserve better

Brutus

16 Comments | City government, El Paso Independent School District, State Government | Permalink
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EPISD wants another leadership program

October 3, 2018

This came in from a loyal contributor:

The El Paso Independent School District (EPISD) is requesting proposals from qualified service providers to implement, train small learning school communities and/or district leadership through a yearlong leadership design institute.

And yet another initiative

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How much this will cost?

We deserve better

Brutus

19 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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EPISD getting smaller faster

September 27, 2018

EPISD is shrinking even faster than before.

A recent report to the board of trustees indicated that total enrollment as of August 27, 2018 was 57,103 students.

Enrollment for the 2014-2015 school year was 61,151

2015-2016 school year was 60,066 a decrease of 1,085 students

2016-2017 school year was 59,750 a decrease of 316 students

2017-2018 school year was 58,549 a decrease of 1,201 students

With the August enrollment at 57,103 they will have another decrease of 1,446 students this year.

Will we see their budget getting smaller?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

 

 

13 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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EPISD–a parent’s comments

September 18, 2018

A loyal reader sent this in:

I simply must express my deep disappointment with EPISD’s instructional technology.  I’m a parent with one still in EPISD.  I have expressed concern about the technology with my AP, but things don’t get fixed.
Technology is fragmented:  My HS student and I use too many different online services.  Teacher specific websites with notes (mostly on Weebly), Schoolology and online textbooks, 3rd party smart phone apps like Remind used by some but not all teachers, Parent Portal for grades and attendance, services like https://www.commonlit.org/ for an English class, emails from teachers with handouts/policies (one attachment per email due to EPISD rules means my inbox is flooded with emails and attachments vs. those being housed and organized online), plus more.  Can’t this school district get a single integrated online learning system like Canvas or Blackboard? If not, then something else but this fragmentation of learning supports must end.
The free computers are starting to break.  But when they do, the family is charged for repairs like broken screens.  Well, kids do need to be careful with their belongings and pay for negligence.  But, accidents do happen and I wonder why families must insure the equipment at their cost (about $200 for a repair of a two year old laptop I think).  I tend to think that if a child is required to carry a laptop then the authority who required such is responsible for upkeep and replacement; the child doesn’t have money and parent didn’t make a decision to issue laptops; this was an EIPSD decision.  I wonder what happens when a family can’t afford the fee to fix a broken laptop.  I’m not against technology, but this computer centric initiative was rolled-out without enough thought.
Finally, and this isn’t a total technology issue, the active learning really is not working – listen up EPISD – I’m telling you that active learning, no matter how good in theory, is not working.  You are hurting some kids with this ill conceived approach.

—

The Wizard

23 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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Watch your school taxes go up next year

September 13, 2018

We wrote about how your EPISD debt service (interest and sinking fund or I&S) rate will have to go up next year in EPISD–some real numbers.

The district wants the voters to approve lowering the I&S rate from 24 cents per hundred to 14 cents per hundred and then adding those 10 cents to the current maintenance and operations rate of $1.07 thus making that rate $1.17 per hundred.

The district knows that they will actually need an I&S rate of 31 cents for 2018-2019.

Some will tell us not to worry because raising the I&S rate from 14 to 31 cents next would trigger a rollback election.

Wrong!

This Texas attorney general opinion tells us that they can raise the rate up to the maximum allowed (50 cents) without triggering a rollback election:

“There is no ceiling or limit on the debt rate for the purposes of the
rollback rate calculation. See TEX. TAX CODE ANN. § 26.08(n)(2)(A)(iv), B(iii) (Vernon SUpp.
2009). Any increases in the adopted debt service rate necessary to pay a school district’s debt
increases the “current debt rate” component of the rollba.ck formula and the combined rollback tax
rate. See id. ; see also COMPTROLLER GUIDE, supra note 6, at 13-14 (“The portion of the overall rate
used to retire debt may rise as high as necessary without triggering the threat of a rollback.”).]]”

They are not telling us the whole story.

We deserve better

Brutus

4 Comments | El Paso Independent School District | Permalink
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