Superintendent discusses district happenings
The Wills Point ISD has put plenty on its plate as the 2015-’16 school year continues to edge towards the finish line.
The district has hired four news principals, (not counting Jeff Smith, who began as the new high school principal April 4), and will look to put a tax swap on the ballot for voters.
The district also plans asses the facility needs of the district moving forward into the future.
Superintendent Scott Caloss sat down with the Chronicle earlier this week, offering his insights the task facing administrators, and how each of those items could play out in the future.
On March 23-25, the WPISD posted job openings for the primary, intermediate, middle and junior high principal positions on its online job board. Caloss acknowledged the uniqueness of the situation, saying “With all five of them leaving, I'm just very thankful for all five of them and all the dedication that they put towards the school district and our students. They've worked hard and done a good job. We've got three that are retiring (Debbie Deen, Glenn Wilson and Jim Lamb) and two (Anita Nance and Larry Hartwick) that are going on to different stages of their lives so to speak. I am I'm nervous but at the same time excited. We're definitely losing some good ones, but hopefully we're going to be getting some good ones to replace them that are going to come in with new ideas and fresh starts so to speak and hopefully take our campuses from where they are to even greater heights.”
As currently listed online, the application period for both the primary and junior high positions will close April 8 and the application period of the middle school and intermediate positions will close April 15.
Due to the time crunch presented by the winding down of the school year, Caloss anticipates the district will not hold community meetings for input that were done prior to the hiring of Jeff Smith as the new high school principal.
“Because of the time frame, it's going to be harder to do that. We're trying to get them all where we have a recommendation for the board by the end of April or beginning of May at the latest. To get all that accomplished, the four principals, our timeframe is going to be a lot tighter. What I've done, is that I've gone to each campus and solicited input from the staff at each campus. We're doing an online questionnaire that parents and community members can fill out as far as some of the characteristics and qualifications that we should be looking for in these principals. That's the way we're going to solicit the input from parents and the community.”
At both their February and March meetings, trustees were also presented and discussed the possibility of holding a tax ratification election to generate extra revenue for the district.
The approval of such a measure would not raise taxes for residents, but shift current taxes paid to the interest and sinking fund over to the maintenance and operations side. Because districts receive more state funding for M&O pennies than I&S pennies, Wills Point could see an annual gain of $490,000 in funding over its current structure with taxes remaining the same.
“We haven't gotten a whole lot of feedback from the community yet. We really just talked about moving forward with it at the last board meeting. There's still a question of a bond as well, so the timing of the two, we've got to determine when we want to do these two things. I'm not really crazy about doing those two things together because it's too much and it's too confusing. I want to spread them out a little bit, but I want to have a conversation at our next board meeting as far as when we might want to do these two projects. Once we determine that, we'll work on getting that information out to the community.”
The additional funding received through a successful tax ratification election, also referred to as a tax swap, could be used in any number of ways by the district.
“I think one of our big priorities moving forward is going to be our technology. We're going have to get that up to date and into the hands of our students. This money could be used to help us accomplish that,” said Caloss. “The money is going to go towards resources for kids in our classrooms, whether it's through materials, supplies. It could even go towards salaries if needed to get more resources for kids in the classrooms through salaries. None of that has been set in stone yet as far as what we're going to do with it. That's all still coming.”
In March, the WPISD Board of Trustees picked up a discussion thread that has been prevalent over the course of the past year by hearing a lengthy presentation on the current facility needs of the district, and a series of possible solutions.
The estimated cost of doing complete upgrades campus wide ranged ran a wide gamut, ranging anywhere from $15-42 million according to Jeff Miller of WRA Architects. Miller went on to advise that many members of the district’s facilities committee favoring an option that would include the construction of a new junior high campus. No determination was made by trustees at that time as to which option would ultimately be pursued.
“They've (WPISD) had a facilities committee since before I got here. We've reconvened with that committee and added to it. We had about 30 people here at the beginning of March to discuss this and we got lot of input from them on when. A lot of them were in favor of doing this (putting a bond before voters) in November. We've discussed the two possibilities of whether to do it this November or May 2017. The thing that's going to play into all of this is the tax ratification. Either we do one in the fall of 2016 and in the spring of 2017 or we could possibly do the tax ratification in the summer,” said Caloss. “These are all discussions that we'll be having at our next board meeting. We've just got to plan it out to where we feel like we've got enough time between each one, and we don't confuse the community. We're saying with this option over here, the TRE, that were not going to raise taxes but it generates us more money and we've got this over here, the potential bond, that's going to raise taxes.”
The next board of trustees meeting is scheduled for April 11 beginning at 7 p.m. at the Wills Point ISD Administration office located at 338 W.N. Commerce St.
