Name that school

 The Hays Consolidated Independent School District School Naming Committee is asking district residents, taxpayers, or service providers to submit possible names between now and noon Nov. 29 for the district’s 15th elementary school, scheduled to open next August in Buda’s Sunfield subdivision. Nominations can be submitted by clicking here.

“New schools in Hays CISD can be named for historical or geographical sites or communities; subdivisions; significant local, state, or national figures (living or deceased); people who have made significant contributions to education in the district (living or deceased); local, state, or national historical events or places; or people who have donated land or money for the property or facility,” the district said in a statement released today.

Sometime after the nomination process closes on the 29th, “the naming committee will meet to begin narrowing name options,” according to today’s announcement from the district. “The committee could suggest a name, or slate of possible names, to the board of trustees as early as December. The board could then choose a final name for the school in January 2022.”

The district added the following criteria for submitting nominations:

• Nominations must be in good taste, and not generally considered offensive, silly, or embarrassing.
• If the nominated name is an historical or geographic site, the name submitted must be accompanied by a written summary and/or a description of the significance of the name.
• If the nominated name is an individual, the name submitted must be accompanied by a written rationale and/or description of the named person's accomplishments. 

Each name nominated must fulfill the following criteria, according to the district:

• The nominee shall be widely respected, regardless of any partisan affiliation.
• The nominee shall be a person of character who embodies a wholesome image that would be expected to stand the test of time.
• The nominee shall have a background of service to people of the district, Texas, or the United States.

Hays school superintendent says students “should” wear masks

 Hays school superintendent Dr. Eric Wright, citing a massive increase in COVID cases among school-aged children in the district, hinted Saturday he might insist students wear masks to attend the district’s schools even if the Texas Supreme Court affirms Gov. Greg Abbott’s ban on masks mandates.

Dr. Eric Wright

“COVID cases in school-aged children in the county are up 130 percent in the last two weeks,” Wright said in an email sent to parents of Hays CISD students. “The Delta variant is filling up hospitals. By most measures, if not all, this surge is worse than what we faced at the beginning of last school year. What we should do is wear masks. Wearing a mask violates no law or order.”

Hays County Judge Ruben Bacerra issued an executive order Friday requiring mask-wearing in schools. 

 “Currently, 70 percent of the 12-15 age group are unvaccinated, and children under 12 are not eligible for a vaccine at all,” Bacera said in defense of his order. “Masks are their only line of defense. We are experiencing a health crisis emergency with rising hospitalizations, and limited bed space. I am concerned about the health and safety of our children and our hardworking faculty and staff members in our ISDs and hospitals. This order is intended to slow down community spread of the COVID-19 virus, and free up hospital space. Personal responsibility, undefined, as a disaster response strategy for an infectious disease pandemic is not working.”

Bacerra’s executive order was similar to those issued by authorities in other governmental jurisdictions such as Dallas and Austin, but were in defiance of Gov. Abbott’s order that no government entity in Texas could issue a mask mandate. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has filed an order with the Texas Supreme Court seeking to overturn the local orders issued by Bacerra and others.

In his email, Wright said he expects the Texas high court, which, traditionally, acts more like a political body than a judicial one, will rule on the issue before classes begin Thursday in Hays schools. 

“Historically regarding COVID, the Texas Supreme Court has sided with the governor,” Wright said.

However, without much further explanation, Wright also said this:

“The court decisions will tell us what we must do. They will not tell us what we should do.”

Does that mean Wright might defy a ruling of the high court? He did not say specifically if he would do so, but he did say “What we should do is wear masks. Wearing a mask violates no law or order. It is the safe thing to do medically and legally.”

But he also said “We will do what we need to do to keep children and staff as safe as possible, but we must do it in a way that respects the ultimate decisions made under law. We cannot have chaos and blatant defiance. That serves no one — especially our children.

“Sadly, the issue of masks is fully entrenched in adult politics,” the superintendent added. “I, along with your locally elected school board, will continue to keep the well-being of your children and our students as the focus.”

Wright also hinted he may reveal additional strategies early this week: “I am working through the weekend with our leadership team and we’ll convene on Monday to make decisions.”

“Our school district attorneys will be providing us with legal counsel that will guide us in our ‘must do’ decisions,” Wright said. “We are educators not lawyers. Know, however, that being in the education business, we — as a collective group of staff, parents, intelligent students and teachers, and locally connected leaders — are capable of solving problems and finding creative solutions that fit within the rules. That’s what we do every day. There’s a way to solve this. Granted, our options are much more limited than last year and it will be a bigger challenge, but we will do this. We will keep our family safe.”

Hays CISD cancels Monday’s in-school, virtual classes

 Hays CISD officials announced this evening that all classes — both in-school and virtual — scheduled for Monday have been canceled due to weather concerns.

“Due to the potential for ice and snow remaining on the roads overnight, Hays CISD schools are canceled and offices are closed for Monday,” the district announced in a prepared statement. “To keep all students on the same schedule, virtual learning is also canceled for Monday in Hays CISD.

“Additionally, with area hospital space severely impacted because of the pandemic, we do not want to risk having additional drivers on roads in the morning when road conditions in parts of our area could be dangerous,” the district’s announcement said.

Kyle middle school band director arrested for child pornography

 Kyle police arrested 30-year-old Dahlstrom Middle School assistant band director Tyler Townsend today on charges of possessing or promotion of child pornography and intimated that the suspect could have had in his possession “invasive” photographs of Dahlstrom students taken without their knowledge.

According to a Kyle Police Department prepared statement, police had a search warrant for Townsend’s residence that was granted as part of a child pornography investigation.

“Several electronic devices were seized from Townsend’s home during the execution of the warrant,” according to the statement. “After reviewing the devices, Kyle Police found that invasive visual recordings of unknowing students were on Townsend’s cell phone. Police are working to identify the victims of these visual recordings and will notify victims directly.”

A statement from Hays CISD stated: “During the course of the police investigation, law enforcement notified Hays CISD that invasive, but not pornographic, photos of unknowing female students, possibly while in school at Dahlstrom, were discovered on Townsend’s cell phone.”

The district said it placed Townsend on administrative leave back on July 27, the same day it was notified police were looking at Townsend as part of a child pornography investigation. Townsend resigned four days later.

Townsend’s arrest comes almost five years to the day he first came to Dahlstrom.

“Townsend’s duties as assistant band director at Dahlstrom included directing the campus symphonic and jazz bands, and the percussion program,” the district said today in a prepared statement. “When Dahlstrom was a feeder middle school to Hays High School, Townsend sometimes assisted with the Hays High School marching band program. In August 2019, Dahlstrom became a feeder pattern for Johnson High School, but Townsend did not assist with the Johnson High School marching band program after the school opened last school year.”

Townsend was charged with 10 felony counts of possession or promotion of child pornography and 10 felony counts of invasive visual recordings. Each count of the third degree felony carries a possible sentence of two to ten years in state prison and a fine of up to $10,000. If any of the victims are younger than 14, it becomes a second-degree felony with each count carrying a sentence of two to 20 years in prison and a $10,000 fine.

Townsend was booked into the Hays County jail.

“Child pornography is not a victimless crime and we are dedicated to working this case with the utmost diligence and are leaving no stone unturned,” Kyle Police Chief Jeff Barnett said in statement.

Hays school officials ask governor to butt-out of local decision-making during pandemic

Saying local schools need to make the decisions based on local situations especially when teachers “are afraid to come back for in-person instruction,” Hays School District Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright and the district’s board of trustees have sent a letter to Gov. Greg Abbott asking him to allow local school districts to decide when and how to reopen their schools without state interference.

“Local school districts need the flexibility to make decisions based on a measured response to local conditions and data,” the local officials said in the letter.

The letter also demands $1.3 million the district claims the state owes the district.

In addition to the governor, the letter was sent to Texas Education Agency Commissioner Mike Morath, Sen. Donna Campbell, R-New Braunfels, and Rep. Erin Zweiner, D-Driftwood.

Although the letter requests a number of issues be addressed, the one involving school reopenings may be a moot point. A week ago, during an interview with a Houston television station, Gov. Abbott said he would grant local districts the flexibility to make those decisions on when to reopen. Originally, he set the three-week limit Superintendent Wright adhered to in his reopening plan, saying that any school that remained closed to in-person classes longer than three weeks would lose state funding.

“I think Mike Morath, the commissioner of education, is expected to announce a longer period of time for online learning at the beginning of the school year, up to the flexibility at the local level,” Abbott said to KTRK. “This is going to have to be a local-level decision, but there will be great latitude and flexibility provided at the local level.”

Public health experts have warned that reopening school buildings in areas where cases are rising precipitously will result in entire communities becoming infected.

“If you open K-12 in areas where virus transmission accelerating, teachers, staff will get sick, as will parents,” tweeted Peter Hotez, an infectious disease expert and the dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. “All it takes is for one or two teachers, staff, or parents to enter hospital, and it will be lights out.”

The Hays district letter also asked that STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academics Readiness) tests be waived for the upcoming school year as well as the state’s grading system for schools, The A-F grades are something most schools would like to see ditched even if the pandemic didn’t exist.

During that same television interview, Gov. Abbott said “It’s way too early to determine whether or not the STAAR test may not be used this particular year. We gotta wait and see.”

Last week, Wright unveiled a plan for reopening the local schools that delayed the fall semester’s opening date from Aug. 20 to Sept. 8 and said the first three weeks of the semester would be online classes only. The letter sent to the governor seeks to allow the district to extend online teaching for as long as local health officials deem necessary.

“Our teachers, staff, and administrators would like nothing more than to welcome every one of our over 21,000 students back to school; but when staff, many of whom have children in the district, are afraid to come back for in-person instruction due to an increase in the number of positive COVID cases, we have a problem that needs to be addressed,” the officials wrote.

Specifically, the letter said the district wants five requests addressed.

First: “Giving local school districts the flexibility to make decisions on providing in-person instruction or on-line learning based on local data and community values and funding for resources that will keep students and employees safe.”

Second: “Waiving STAAR and A-F rating for the 2020-21 school year. It is absurd, in the midst of figuring how to reopen and being terrified of losing a student or staff member, that the state is mandating STAAR testing and labeling schools with letter grades.”

Third: “Amend acceptable uses and qualifications for receipt of CARES Act funding for the reimbursement of expenditures on remediation or preventative measures necessary to stop the spread of COVID-19 rather than using it to backfill gaps in the state budget.” The CARES (Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security) Act is a $2.2 trillion economic stimulus bill passed by the congress in March in response to the economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the district’s letter, the district was supposed to receive $1.3 million “that was never disbursed and is still needed to invest in more safety equipment” along with personal protective equipment and other learning tools.

Fourth: “Additional funding to supplement costs incurred by districts to provide safe and effective learning.”

Fifth: “A commitment to allocate current or future federal money specified for schools as a supplement for existing funding commitments by the state.”

Here is the complete text of the district's letter.

Start date for Hays schools moved back until after Labor Day

Citing rising hospitalization and mortality rates in Hays County due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Hays School Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright announced this evening the start of the classes for the upcoming fall semester has been rescheduled for Sept. 8 and that the first three weeks of classes will be virtual. After that, he said, parents will have the option of having their school children attend classes in person or virtually.

“We realize it’s tough,” Wright said. “Everyone wants the school to start back so that they can get back to work. But we can only do so when we know we can protect everyone.”

The first date of classes for the upcoming school year was originally scheduled for Aug. 20.

“Our district is large and the community that we serve right now is dealing with a lot more cases and we feel like if we’re pro-active by pushing this date back, we’re going to protect a lot of people,” Wright said.

In making the decision to delay the start of the school year, Wright said administrators studied information from the American Academy of Pediatrics, documents from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) pertaining to re-opening safely and the guidelines for school re-openings formulated by the Center for Disease Control (CDC).

“You can’t educate students unless everyone is safe and healthy,” Wright told the district’s board of trustees this evening. “We always had that at the forefront of our minds and so we wanted to make sure that the 21,000-plus students we’re going to serve and the 3,000-plus faculty members we’re going to serve and all of the people that they go home to will remain safe.”

The Sept. 8 start date means the school year will end June 16, 2021, Wright told the board.
“Because of our rising hospitalization rates and our rising mortality rates, we felt compelled to protect our community,” Wright said.

“We also decided that once we start on Sept. 8 we will be virtual because we want everyone to understand what that system looks like,” he said.

For those students who decide to return after the three-week virtual period, Wright said, “We’re going to do our very best to social distance, wear masks, sanitize hands — all the things the CDC asked for us to do.”

He also said “hot spots” are going to be inevitable and when that happens, the school(s) affected will have to return to all-virtual instruction and learning. He told the trustees that Texas Gov, Greg Abbott has walked back many of his original demands for school re-openings, especially in areas with high Covid concentrations. Hays County currently has 18.46 positive Covid cases per 1,000 population, a rate higher than Harris, Dallas, or Travis counties and twice as high as Bexar County.

“We will be giving parents and guardians the opportunity to chose whether they want to go in-person learning or virtual learning and we’ll be doing that by the (9-week) grading period,” Wright said. “That way we can staff appropriately and prepare master courses for kids appropriately.”

“We are going to make sure we are reaching out to all of our children with special needs to make sure they are getting the support they need,” the superintendent said. “We’ve talked about even making home visits or allowing certain groups of kids to come in where it’s safe so we can make sure they have the adaptive materials they need in order to be successful.”

He also said the district has contracted with the YMCA to extend its summer programs through Sept. 4. “That way parents have another option if they need to drop off their kids.”

Wright said Covid screening mechanisms will be in place when in-person classes resume. “We are going to ask when we return in person that everyone wear a face covering if they’re within six feet. We’re going to ask that each individual is responsible for their own face covering.”

However, he added, the district is supposed to receive personal protective equipment that can be used as replacements in the event a student’s face covering “breaks, or has tears in them or they cough in them and they need a new one.”

He said schools will be required to have supervised isolation holding areas in case “a kid has a fever once he comes to school or develops other symptoms” to try to prevent that student from infecting others. Plexiglass barriers are also being installed in all school reception, library and food service areas, he said. He said the district will be encouraging personal transportation to and from all schools because social distancing requirements would limit the number of students on a bus to no more than 14. When bus transportation is necessary, riders must wear masks and “ask that we only have one student per seat.” Students will be assigned seats on a school bus to facilitate contact tracing, the superintendent said.

Schools will not have meet-the-teacher events or open houses during the upcoming school year, Wright said. “We will try to the best of our ability to replicate a virtual model, but we’re not going to allow campus visitors just because it’s not safe. We’re going to encourage parents to drop their kids off. If they want to walk them, they can walk them to the front door and then say good-bye.”

“We’re going to shut down our water fountains this year, but there will be fountains available for water bottle filling only,” he said.

“We’re going to create staggered drop-off and pick-up times,” he said, adding that he will be working with other government agencies to lengthen the time electronic school zone speed restriction signs are in operation and also to extend school speed-restriction zones.

Noting that STAAR testing requires a student to appear in person, Board President Esperanza Orosco mentioned after Wright’s presentation that she hoped “our parents and our community (are) writing to their elected officials letting them know we should waive STAAR testing for the 2020-2021 school year because that is not in the best interest of our students.”

Trustee Meridith Keller told Wright she was “feeling very sad” as he outlined the protocols for the upcoming school year. “This is not what we want. This is not what anyone wants and I think we’re all going to need a lot of grace. This is going to get completely messed up, I’m sure. Things are going to go wrong. We will make mistakes – traffic going in and out of schools, pickups and drop-offs by people rushing to get to work and it’s going to be a mess. So everybody is going to need to give so much grace and be kind during this.”

Board Vice President Will McManus called Wright’s plan “well thought-out.”

“No plan is going to please everybody,” McManus said. “There’s going to be people who are upset about it or have different opinions but I appreciate that we are putting our students and our staff first and I think that’s the most important thing that we can do. I do feel like it’s very dystopian and I agree with Miss Keller that it’s very sad. I hope it’s as temporary as we can make it. I know we all want to get back to normal. We need to take these steps, but what a strange time we’re living in.”

You can read the school district's reopening plan here.

Start date for Hays schools moved back

   Hays School Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright announced this evening the start of the fall semester has been rescheduled for Sept. 8 and that the first three week of classes will be virtual. After that, he said, parents will have the option of having their school children attend classes in person or virtually.

(More to come)

School board votes to retire Hays High mascot

   The Hays CISD board of trustees voted unanimously this evening to retire the Rebel mascot at Hays High School and to allow the district’s superintendent to oversee the selection of a replacement.

  The only debate on the subject came when District 3 trustee Dr. Michael Sanchez argued the board should also be involved in choosing a new mascot, but none of the other trustees agreed with him.

   “Hate is not our community,” said board president Esperanza Orosco, trying, mostly unsuccessfully, to keep her emotions in check as she made the motion to approve the mascot retirement, a motion seconded by vice president Will McManus.

(More to come)

Hays High will keep Rebel mascot at least through start of school year

The results are in and the students of Hays High School have spoken loudly and clearly. And their message? “We really can’t be bothered with this right now.”

And that’s probably the right message at this time, especially when it comes to something like figuring out what the school’s new mascot will or should be. For one thing, no one knows for sure if the students will even be returning to the school campus. Some may and others may not. According to the school district’s web site, parents of Hays High School students “will have an option to keep your children learning from home or send them to school in-person.” I would imagine making that decision is weighing more heavily on the minds of students and parents than what the new mascot should be.

I wrote recently that the district provided an on-line link where students could select their choice for a new mascot. Only about a third of the students (902, to be exact) participated in the process. The Patriots received the most votes — 143, in all, which amounts to a whopping 5 percent of the student population. That is by no means any kind of mandate. In a classic understatement, school administrators said today in an official statement. “The administration does not believe it was able to obtain enough student response during this process to be confident that the responses fully represent what students would like to see as a new mascot.” Ya think?

Which is probably one of the reasons the school trustees won’t be asked to select a new mascot when they meet Thursday to consider whether they even want to join the 21st Century and rid the school of its current Rebel mascot. That means, according to the district statement, the Rebels will continue to be the school’s mascot at least through the start of the upcoming school year and quite possibly for the entire school year.

“Though the campus could begin phasing out ‘rebel’ depictions on websites, walls, and other places around the building immediately, an official mascot change-over date would likely not occur until the spring semester or at the start of the 2021-2022 school year,” district administrators said today.

In fact, the administration wants to take the board completely out of the process of selecting a new mascot. The administration said in today’s statement it plans to recommend at Thursday’s school board meeting “that the board retire the Rebel mascot and authorize prior approval to allow the superintendent to determine a new mascot, without requiring an additional board vote, following a student selection process that would occur once students return to class, whether in-person or virtually, for the 2020-2021 school year,”

There appears to be an out, though, for those Hays students who don’t wish to be a “Rebel” during the upcoming school year should the trustees decide to dump the racist moniker.

“Students who do not wish to wear uniforms with ‘Rebels’ on them would not be required to do so,” administrators said. “References to ‘Rebels’ on their uniforms could be covered.”

The administration estimated it will cost, at the most, $600,000 to replace the mascot, a sum that would be split between the next two fiscal year budgets. This would cover replacing student uniforms as well as  Rebel references painted on school buildings, the floor of the campus gym and various signs. However, the administration said, “If uniforms are patched and not replaced until their normal replacement cycle, the cost impact of a mascot change would be lower.”

“Digital conversions, such as letterhead templates, website markings, social media graphics, and the development of a new mascot graphics package, would not incur any expense to the district,” administrators said. “Branding services, including logo and graphics design, are provided free to the district through the existing district vendors that supply athletic uniforms and equipment.”

At first, I was not that enthralled by the first-place finisher — the Patriots — that the plurality of students chose in the on-line selection process. I associate it too much with New England’s NFL team and I’m not sure such a scandal ridden franchise should be one a local high school should emulate. But the more, I thought about it, the better it sounded. For one thing, it seems to have some kind of relationship to Rebel; perhaps students regarded “Patriot” as the antithesis to “Rebel.” It also rolls nicely off the tongue, especially when you combine it with “Patriot Pride” or events such as a “Patriot Parade” or “Patriot Picnic.”

The second place finisher was “Cowboys” (127 votes), which made me even more convinced NFL names played a huge part in this voting. Hays Hawks (123 votes), my personal favorite, was third followed by Dragons (95), Wildcats (93), Hurricanes (70), Honey Badgers (56), Mavericks (45), Phoenixes (38), Hyenas (33), Hornets (30), Eagles (21), and Lions (20).

Students attending middle schools that feed into Hays also had the opportunity to select from the list and they went with the alliteration options, choosing Honey Badgers first, Hornets second and Hawks third.

Hays CISD administrators recommend mascot change at Hays High School

After seeing the results of its own survey that showed 59 percent of the students and 72 percent of the teachers and staff at Hays High School were uncomfortable with the school’s Rebel mascot, Hays CISD administrators announced today they will recommend the district’s board of trustees change the mascot. The board is expected to act on the recommendation later this month.

“Hays CISD is a much different community than it once was, and so is the world,” the administration said in a prepared statement released today. “We all grow and learn. As a school district, we are, in fact, in the business of growing and learning. The administration believes that it is time to change the mascot and open a new chapter at Hays High School – one that, moving forward, can be embraced and celebrated by all.”

Beginning today, students will have the opportunity to select from a list of proposed new mascots and the results of that process will also be forwarded to the board, according to today’s announcement. In an earlier process, students were asked to pick a new mascot and the top responses were “Hawks, Hornets, Patriots, Cowboys, Eagles, Hurricanes, Hyenas, Phoenixes, Lions, Mavericks, Wildcats, Dragons, and Honey Badgers,” according to the administration’s announcement. The district has prepared what it is calling “a choice selection sheet” that will be used by students to vote on a new mascot and the 13 proposed new mascots listed above are the top names on that selection sheet. Students are supposed to begin receiving links to that selection sheet beginning today and “the choice selection sheet responses will be presented to the board to consider, should the board vote to change the mascot,” according to the administrators.

“When nearly 60 percent of the students, and more than 70 percent of the teachers and staff members, show little to no comfort with the current mascot, it ceases to serve its intended purpose,” the Hays CISD administration said in today’s prepared statement. “When more than a quarter of the students, and nearly a third of the teachers and staff members, are very uncomfortable with the current mascot; that mascot fails in its objective. When a mascot mires the school in political controversy and pits students, families, and community members against each other; it is time to change.”

“The mere fact that the rebel mascot is indisputably divisive is enough to warrant its change,” the administrators said.

Should the board avoid political grandstanding and do the right thing by voting to change the school’s mascot, administrators said “the district will help Hays High School make the transition to the new mascot based on a workable time line that would be developed and announced after a board decision. In anticipation of a possible change, the district will begin preparing an inventory, with associated costs, of items that would need to be changed, including uniforms and signage.”

The administration said no costs estimates for the transition had been prepared as of today.

The Hays CISD survey was sent to 2,325 Hays High School students in grades 9 through 12 and 265 teachers and staff members at the school; 49.55 percent of the students and 55.1 percent of the teachers/staff responded. Of those, 59.37 percent of the students and 71.91 percent of the teachers/staff expressed “little to no comfort level with (the) mascot.”

The statement also noted school trustees might consider, “when making its decision, a community petition that was submitted through an internet website that had more than 1,400 signatures as of July 2. Students have also formed a committee to change the mascot and have reported to news organizations that they have a petition that has garnered more than 500 signatures. Furthermore, board members are reading the many comments on the subject posted to community-managed social media sites, as well as sites operated by news media organizations.”
.

Solving the Lehman congestion problem

When I wrote about the city council’s response to a proposed ordinance amendment that would attempt to solve the problem of off-campus parking by Lehman High School students by requiring residents in the neighborhoods where the students are parking to twist and turn through and around all kinds of bureaucratic obstacles to obtain parking permits, I mentioned the solution proposed did absolutely nothing to address the root causes of the problem. According to his testimony provided at Tuesday night’s city council meeting, Police Chief Jeff Barnett said the problem was caused by students needing to quickly drive to their after-school jobs and avoiding the congestion that comes from using the school’s parking lot. And, according to council member Daphne Tenorio, the residents of the area affected by the off-campus parking, especially those in the Steeplechase subdivision, were demanding the city pay the costs of installing no-parking signs on the affected residential streets.

Think about that for a moment. The residents were demanding the city fix a problem caused by the school. These same folks that scream about the notion that the city’s property tax rate is so high come running to the city screaming for it to shell out money to fix a neighborhood problem the city is not even responsible for causing. Don’t these folks realize that only 20.6 percent of their total property tax bill goes to the city, yet 54.2 percent — more than twice as much — goes to the school district? And residents must pay that school district property tax even if they don’t have children attending Hays CISD schools? Get a grip here — the school district needs to help fix the problem.

And here’s how it can do exactly that:

As I understand it, the congestion is caused by the fact that all the students parked on the Lehman High parking lot must exit onto Lehman Road, just south of that road’s termination at Goforth, an intersection where traffic is controlled by three stop signs. The students exiting the parking lot, combined with other traffic going north on Lehman quickly form a long queue from the intersection blocking the exit from the student parking lot.

To fix that problem, the school district, or perhaps simply Lehman High School independently, needs to contract with the Kyle Police Department to hire a pair of off-duty uniformed officers to direct the traffic. One officer is stationed at the parking lot entrance to temporarily start and stop the traffic going north and south on Lehman, directing the student vehicles exiting from the parking lot, while the second is positioned at the intersection to temporarily start and stop the traffic on Goforth, negating the need for the Lehman traffic to stop at that intersection during this time and preventing the backups. I would expect the total time the officers would be required to expedite the flow of traffic would be 30 minutes each school day. ThaT should not be a high ticket item, especially for a school district that is seeking voter approval next month on a quarter of a billion dollar bond package. This arrangement, in fact, would mean a more rapid after school exit for those in the Lehman High parking lot than for those parked in the surrounding neighborhoods.

Incidentally, voters will be asked to vote on that bond package the same day the district has scheduled a parade to celebrate its 50^th anniversary. Go figure.

On sales taxes, parades, Sunday deadlines, administering by committee

• Kyle’s sax tax receipts for April were $1,159 more than anticipated for the month, but the city still has yet to overcome its dismal haul from two months ago. For the year, Kyle’s receipts are $82,682.32 less than what the fiscal year budget forecast. Again, that does not mean the city is that much in debt, only that it has that much less available to spend than it planned. Plus, the city’s strong reserves more than compensate for this budget gap. The main contributor to this gap appears to be the fact that consumers spent far fewer sales tax dollars during the Christmas holiday period than anticipated, resulting in February’s receipts being $56,000 less than forecast. April’s numbers were a scant 0.24 percent above what was projected; however they are $46,055, or 10.37 percent, higher than April 2016's collections, a sign that the local economy continues to grow.
• Interestingly, Mountain City has established a Sunday deadline for those wishing to be considered for its city administrator position. Sunday seems like a strange deadline to me, but who am I to tell Mountain City how to conduct its business. I have to wonder, however, who gets to man City Hall that Sunday to wait around in case Federal Express brings one final delivery or someone personally delivers a resume in a plain brown wrapper sometime before 5 p.m. As outlined in the official job description, "The city administrator (CA) serves as the administrative manager under the direction of the mayor and city council and is responsible for the efficient administration of the affairs for the city. The CA will work closely with the mayor, council, city personnel and support staff towards accomplishing short and long term objectives. The CA supervises and coordinates city activities to ensure that all laws and ordinances are faithfully performed and enforced. The CA should be a positive leader, a self-starter, and a person of high moral character and integrity. The CA is expected to be responsive to the needs of all stakeholders and strive to work toward positive, effective, and fiscally responsible solutions." The notice also says the city administrator must be a resident of Mountain City, so I guess that means anyone wishing the job who lives outside the city only has less than a 100 hours in which to relocate.
• In preparation for writing the story on possible fixes for the Lehman High neighborhood parking kurfuffle, I asked city spokesperson Kim Hilsenbeck whether the city manager had given any consideration to forming a separate department to handle any and all situations involving mobility and the city’s street infrastructure. Her reply: "We have an internal committee that functions the same as the department you proposed. The committee is made up of the chief of police, our public works director, the city engineer, and several members of our city administration team. Those folks make decisions about mobility infrastructure together." So therein lies the problem, folks. By definition, such a committee could not accomplish what a separate department composed mainly of engineers trained in municipal mobility issues could achieve. It could, however, produce proposed ordinances like the one the City Council wisely and unanimously shot down earlier this week. As we’ve recently seen, such a committee can come up with answers to a problem, but not solutions.
• Received a notice from the Hays CISD yesterday announcing it will be staging a parade eginning at 10 a.m., Saturday, May 6, the day, according to the notice, that "marks the anniversary of the vote taken in 1967 to consolidate the Buda, Kyle, and Wimberley school districts into one." I’m trying to convince myself that it’s just a coincidence that this parade will take place the same time the Kyle City Council will be conducting its first workshop to consider ideas for the 2017-18 fiscal year budget. And I am the last person in the world to be considered a conspiracy theorist. But, still …

City officials laud school board for passing freeport exemption

Led by Mayor Todd Webster, elected officials, city staff representatives and members of the local business community joined in predicting a more viable economic future for Kyle in the wake of the Hays CISD school board’s vote tonight approving a freeport exemption for area businesses, thus thrusting Kyle and Buda into the list of communities known as "triple freeport."

The board voted 6-0, with Sandra Bryant, who is not seeking re-election to the board in May, abstaining, to grant a property tax exemption to non-petroleum related inventory held by a company for less than 175 days. The district joins the City of Kyle and Hays County in granting the exemption, hence the "triple freeport" designation, a label that has proved to be a business-location magnet in other areas of Texas.

"I’m really appreciative, I’m very glad they did it," Mayor Webster said. "It has the potential to be a game-changer for the City of Kyle and our economic development efforts. It’s been a long time coming and I’m very appreciative they decided to do it. I don’t think they are going to regret it for a minute. It’s a wonderful economic development opportunity for the city. What that might mean in additional tax revenue, not only for the city but also for the school district, will more than compensate for whatever is lost through the actual exemptions. And the way the statute is structured, the school district really doesn’t lose anything anyway.

"I’m confident it’s going to work out great," the mayor continued. "It shows that the members who supported it were listening to the facts and that they conducted an appropriate analysis on what this would mean to the community and the district.. Good job by them."

Webster’s sentiments were echoed by Kyle’s Economic Development Director Diana Torres, council member Travis Mitchell and Chamber of Commerce CEO Julie Snyder.

"This is a huge move forward for the whole entire Hays ISD school district area, including the cities of Kyle and Buda," Ms. Torres said. "We all partnered very well together to make this happen and we see some big things in our future."

"I’m proud of the school board," Mitchell said. ‘They were making a sound decision for the future of Kyle and Buda."

"I feel very good," Ms. Snyder said moments after the vote was taken. "I feel great. This means added resources for the district, for the community, new businesses."

During discussion on the issue, board trustee Willie Tenorio said he was compelled to address what he labeled "the elephant in the room."

"I didn’t want to bring this up, but I’ve had some requests from people to talk about it," Tenorio said. "Behind the scenes I was getting a lot of attacks from a small group of gentlemen on the City Council of Kyle, It seems like they were hoping I would stop asking questions. I’ve noticed a lot of Kyle politics has gotten really dirty lately."

Mitchell said he was baffled by Tenorio’s remarks.

"I have no idea what that was about," Mitchell said, without even having to be asked a question about what Tenorio said. "Everything I’ve said on freeport is public. I’ve published on it. I’ve only met with trustee Bryant and trustee (Esperanza) Orosco on the issue."

Webster was more blunt when he learned of Tenorio’s statement.

"Willie is a knucklehead," the mayor said. "And you can quote me on that."

Mitchell vows “very exciting projects” if school board approves freeport exemption

City Council member Travis Mitchell told the Hays CISD school board last night that the board’s vote to approve a freeport tax exemption is personal and "a big one" to the City and that "several very exciting projects" that "can benefit our community in a very meaningful and impactful way" are waiting in the wings should that approval be forthcoming.

Later in the meeting, a city official said one of those projects alone could more than compensate the district for any losses it might incur by granting the exemption.

Mitchell was the only person to speak about the proposed tax exemption during the citizens comments period of last night’s board meeting.

The agenda for the meeting called for "consideration and possible action regarding adoption" of a motion that would exempt certain business inventory from property taxes levied by the school district. However, about an hour before the meeting was to commence, word came down that last night’s meeting was to be a work session only and no action would be taken.

A vote is expected next week, however, and the feeling among observers is the board will approve the exemption, by a 5-2 or even a 6-1 margin. If it does approve the measure, Kyle will achieve the distinction of becoming a designated "triple freeport" community, meaning all three major area taxing authorities — the city, the county and the school district — will have granted this exemption, which essentially exempts non-petroleum related inventory that’s kept within a business for less than 175 days from being subject to property taxes.

Many major business concerns only choose to locate in areas with triple freeport exemptions. These exemptions are, for example, the reason why the Amazon distribution center recently located in San Marcos and Samsung chose Manor for the location of a major manufacturing facility.

The school district has waited a long time to come around to granting the exemptions, party because of objections raised by no-growth board members and community activists, but also because those willing to support it wanted to negotiate separate contracts with eight local companies — CFAN, Goodrich UTC, RSI, Henderson Controls, Southwestern Pneumatic, Cabela’s, Ampersand Art Supply and the Fat Quarter Shop — to phase in the exemptions over a five-year period so that increased state funding during this period would neutralize the loss of revenue resulting from the exemptions. The board was informed last night the district has in its possession all eight signed contracts.

"I’ve spoken to many of you on this issue," Mitchell told the board. "It’s very personal to me and to the City as well."

The councilman acknowledged those from the Kyle Chamber of Commerce, City of Kyle officials and various economic development activists attending the meeting who support the exemption. "This is a big one for us," he said, "and it’s a big one for the school board. We recognize just how thorough you’ve been and find no fault whatsoever in taking time to really make sure you make a wise decision.

"We’ve got several very exciting projects that are waiting patiently for triple freeport," Mitchell told the board. "We look forward to being able to show, if you would support it, just how much that can benefit our community in a very meaningful and impactful way right up front."

Later in the meeting, when school board member Willie Tenorio, a member of the anti-exemption faction, pressed for information on exactly who or what those "exciting projects" were, an extremely hoarse Kyle Economic Development Director Diane Torres told him "The projects that council member Mitchell referred to are still highly confidential. I can speak to the fact that in just one of them it would more than cover the net $48,000 after year five going forward."

State slaps Hays schools with a grade of D, district’s response rates an F

The Texas Education Agency confirmed today what U.S. News and World Report has been reporting for years and what most objective observers already knew — at least intuitively — and that’s the public schools around these parts aren’t very good. They aren’t adequately preparing students for a life after public school.

This is the first year the TEA will be grading schools just like students in those schools are graded — on an A to F basis. This year, however, the agency issued every school in the state a separate grade in four different categories. From here on out, each school and each district will simply receive one overall grade.

The four grades for the Hays Consolidated Independent School District averaged out to a D+ — certainly nothing to brag about. But the in the category that really matters — the one that grades districts on how well they are preparing students for college and post-secondary school careers — Hays got a flat D. That’s not good.

One the bright side — if one needs a bright side to this — four of the 15 Austin-area school districts (Elgin, Bastrop, Georgetown and San Marcos) received lower overall grades than Hays. The highest ranked was Eanes, ISD; Lake Travis ISD was second followed by Austin and Round Rock, tied for third and fourth. Dripping Springs and Hutto tied for fifth and sixth place. The other districts in the area scoring higher than Hays were Del Valle, Leander and Pflugerville.

In fact, in that important category of career preparedness, Hays finished in the bottom third of the entire state of Texas. That, too, is not good.

Now, I, for one, would expect the school district’s response to this report card be something along the lines of "this is totally unacceptable and we plan to take immediate steps to improve our educational product." Instead Superintendent Michael McKie released a statement that said: "Sadly, the new rating systems is deficient in capturing all of the positive things happening in our classrooms and in schools across the state. In fact, this new rating system is damaging because it creates a false impression about students, ignores the unique strengths of each school, and unfairly reduces each student’s worth to the school’s assigned grade."

Wait a minute! A student’s individual report card does exactly the same thing! "Sorry, mom! Sorry, dad, that I got all Ds and Fs on my report card, but it really isn’t my fault. This report card is going to give you a false impression of my worth to the school." Sure. Fine, Whatever.

Additionally McKie tries to fault the system by saying "the standards for these letter grades were set by comparing scores for campuses and districts across the state; which is a departure from the current system that compares schools with similar demographics."

I hate to break this news to you, Superintendent McKie, but college admissions are also going to be based largely on comparing scores of students "across the state" and also "across the nation." Your students are going to be competing for jobs not only with those "across the state," but job seekers all over the world. Comparing scores is how the system works. The kid with the highest score gets admitted to the prestige school. The job applicant with the highest score gets the position. And the scores come from standardized tests taken by everyone. The SAT is a standardized test and, fairly or not, a student’s score on that one standardized test will most likely affect the rest of his or her life. That was true when I took the SAT almost 60 years ago and it's still true today.

So McKie’s response appears on its face to be an outright admission that he and his staff will not be working to improve the delivery of a high quality education to the students in Hays school, but, instead, an attack on the system. If you don’t like the message, kill the messenger. That’s why he also said, "This month, we will propose to our Board of Trustees a resolution, developed by TASA, that would place our district on a growing list of more than 150 other Texas school districts that are united in calling for the repeal of this new and inadequate rating system."

I also hate to break this news to you, Superintendent McKie, but TEA isn’t the only educational "rating system" that says schools in the Hays CISD are lousy. Check out what U.S. News & World Report — whose school ranking system, not only for Texas schools, but schools across the nation, is considered the gold standard — has to say about Hays’ high schools. U.S. News ranks schools according to a College Readiness Index, the percentage of graduating students with a proficiency in mathematics and the percentage of students with a proficiency in English. The scores for Hays CISD in those three categories were 28.3, 24 percent and 31 percent. Hays High School’s grades were 35.2, 29 percent and 46 percent. The scores for Lehman High School were really abysmal: 21.4, 18 percent and 31 percent. Compare those numbers to those of, say, the TAG Magnet High School in Dallas: 100, 67 percent, 100 percent. Or take the Ann Richards High School in Austin: 79.8, 86 percent, 95 percent.

You see, Superintendent McKie, higher scores are possible and it’s simply wrong-headed and irresponsible for you to blame the TRA’s system when there is supporting evidence for the system’s results.

Now you might be asking yourself what does all this have to do with city government, since this journal is supposed to be dedicated to city government. City government is actively trying to promote business development in the area— trying to lure businesses to Kyle to help offset the property tax burden currently borne largely by homeowners. But businesses are not coming to an area with schools ranked among the lowest third in the entire state of Texas. That means an increasingly high percentage of the costs of local government is going to be the responsibility of homeowners.

But a report like this could also have a significantly negative impact on property values in the area. In fact, I have already had conversations with a few city officials who are anticipating such a negative impact. That means, in order to achieve a consistent level of government services, it might be absolutely necessary to raise the tax rate.

And there’s also the case where the school district is going to be asking the voters to approve a bond sale to finance capital expenditures. I also hate to break this news to you, Superintendent McKie, but capital expenditures have absolutely no effect on the quality of the education delivered. And this report card from the TEA supported by the findings of U.S. News & World Report should be a wake-up call that you should be directing all your efforts into improving the educational product, not building things, especially when you’ve almost guaranteed that the property values that will be used to fund these bonds will be decreasing.

What these reports reveal quite clearly is that it’s time for the citizens of Kyle to wake up and quit blindly supporting the Hays schools, the Hays school district, the Hays school administrators and, most of all, the Hays School Board and, instead, start supporting the future of your student-children.

Here are the TEA’s preparing students for college and career grades for the schools in the Hays CISD:

• Armando Chapa Middle School D
• Blanco Vista Elementary C
• Buda Elementary C
• Camino Real Elementary D
• Carpenter Hill Elementary B
• D.J. Red Simon Middle School F
• Elm Grove Elementary B
• Eric Dahlstrom Middle School B
• Hemphill Elementary D
• Jack C. Hays High School C
• Kyle Elementary C
• Laura B. Negley Elementary B
• Laura B. Wallace Middle School C
• Lehman High School F
• Live Oak Academy B
• R.C. Barton Middle School B
• Ralph Pfluger Elementary D
• Science Hall Elementary C
• Susie Fuentes Elementary C
• Tobias Elementary C
• Tom Green Elementary D

At least two council members will try to lower proposed tax rate, Mayor Webster leaves door slightly ajar

(Updated Monday, Aug. 31, at 5 p.m.)
Near the end of this article the subject of the Hays Consolidated Independent School District not offering a free port exemption was raised by Mayor Todd Webster. I reached out to the Hays CISD about this and received the following reply from Tim Savoy, the district's public information officer:

"Hays CISD Superintendent Michael McKie and Deputy Superintendent Carter Scherff met with the Greater San Marcos Partnership for the first time on Friday. The district will be working with Moak, Casey, and Associates to do an analysis of how the exemption would affect the school district before we make a decision. There is a potential that it would not only affect our tax revenue, but also our funding from the state. We hope to have the Moak Casey report in the coming weeks and we will go from there."

(Original Post)
Mayor Todd Webster says, while there are some budget reductions he could support, he believes the proposed 26 percent property tax rate hike "is necessary to properly run this city." At least two other council members, however, dispute that notion including one who believes the tax rate can be reduced from its current level.

Webster also said it was the Hays Consolidated School District that is "the single biggest obstacle to us landing the game-changing large scale employer that would truly drive down the rate as well as providing great jobs for people who live here." The claim, however, seems a little dubious and I am seeking a reaction to this statement from the Hays CISD.

As usual, Webster was disingenuous, at best, and outright spreading falsehoods, at worst, in a statement he posted recently to a neighborhood website. For example, he wrote "Most of the suggestions I have heard (to reduce the rate hike) have been to cut capital expenditures for equipment and other physical improvements." Now capital expenditures do not come from the General Fund so reducing them would have absolutely no effect on the tax rate. Either Webster doesn’t know this, which makes him stupid, or he does know it, which makes him a demagogue.

Then he goes on to spread the lie he proffered at the first tax rate public hearing Aug. 18, but, at least, didn’t repeat at last Wednesday’s hearing. "There will need to be $1.6M in cuts to offset the entirety of the rate increase, which is an increase resulting from the road bonds and paying down some additional debt." This is simply not true. The rate increase is also needed to pay for an additional 20 new city government employees, including five additional police officers, new equipment and $1.5 million for the creation of "Internal Service Funds for Equipment, Fleet and Facility."

Not that all of these additions are not wanted or even, in many cases, needed; but Webster should simply not be repeating the lie that the entire tax hike is due to the road bonds,

Speaker after speaker at the two public hearings on the rate hike pleaded with the council to lower the rate. Their pleas appear to have fallen on deaf ears when it comes to the mayor, but at least two other council members have heard them. One told me right after Wednesday’s meeting it is guaranteed amendments will be offered to reduce the proposed rate of $.6145 per $100 valuation because that particular council member plans to offer them.. (The current tax rate is $.5383 and the effective tax rate — the rate that would bring in the same amount of revenue as the current year — is $.4870.)

Another council member plans to introduce enough amendments to actually reduce the rate to $50455, 3.3 cents lower than the current rate. "However, we have several factors that have not been finalized yet," this official told me. "That includes a possible increase from the EMS contract. I keep hearing the cost of the EMS contract is going to go up by over $200k. I also want to make sure our Police and Fire have all they need. So this is just a starting point for me."

In his statement to the neighborhood website, Webster said:

"Based on the severe deficiency in the city’s capacity to provide the services a city of 45,000 people should be getting, I think this budget, particularly the additional staff for police and utilities is catching up to where the city needs to be. While there are certainly places where some reductions could be made, there will be consequences to those reductions. Most of the suggestions I have heard have been to cut capital expenditures for equipment and other physical improvements, There will need to be $1.6M in cuts to offset the entirety of the rate increase resulting from the road bonds and paying down some additional debt. Some on the city council appear to recognize the budget and the tax increase as an opportunity to score political points. I suppose that is to be expected. For me, I am going to make a decision on this budget based on what I understand is necessary to properly run this city and provide the citizens the level of services that I regularly hear that they want. Many of the additional positions and capital projects are what citizens have been demanding while others are desperately needed items, such as waste water system fixes, that are not visible to most taxpayers. There are some reductions I can support and I am looking forward to seeing what some of the council members’ suggestions (are). As for commercial development offsetting residential taxes, I think we will need to land an additional $1 billion in commercial tax base to see a noticeable impact. To truly have a good chance at doing that, we are going to need the school district, which is the largest taxing entity on your tax bill, to do what other districts have done and adopt a free port exemption. Not having that is the single biggest obstacle to us landing the game-changing large scale employer that would truly drive down the rate as well as providing great jobs for people who live here. Right now, we are excluded from consideration from most if not all major manufacturing and distribution projects because of not having it."

The question remains, however, is how granting tax exemptions is going to allow for commercial development to offset residential taxes. I have reached out to Merideth Keller, president of the Hays CISD board of trustees, for her reaction to the mayor’s statement and will update this post when and if I receive a reply.