The Whitney Independent School District Board of Trustees met in a regular session Monday, October 16 and approved a retention stipend for employees in November.
In September, the board initially considered a retention stipend for all WISD employees for a one-time payment of $500. Superintendent John McCullough said that the money for the stipend would be funded from the $170,000 left from the Emergency and Secondary School Relief (ESSR) Fund.
Action was put on hold until this month after the board discussed structuring the stipend to provide employees who have been with the district longer a higher stipend.
At last week’s meeting, a stipend of $500 for those who have been with the district nine years or less and $750 for those who have been employed for 10 years or more was approved.
Last month, the board heard from Joan Thorne, a representative of Chartwells K-12, who gave a presentation on food management. Thorne discussed the possibility of the district utilizing a food management company (FMC) for its cafeteria services. Judy Bailey, WISD food services director, presented a letter to the board after the meeting outlining her department’s activities.
In the letter, Bailey wrote about the limitations of FMCs and how she believed it would do harm to the current team serving WISD. She pointed out how the FMC’s plan to take over the procurement process would cost the school money.
Bailey stated her goal to work toward operating under the Community Eligibility Provision (CEP), which would allow all students to eat for free. CEP is done at the district level, not by a FMC; and Bailey says that the introduction of an FMC into WISD’s process will take up valuable funds that could otherwise go toward implementing the CEP.
Bailey spoke at this month’s meeting and reiterated her stance. The board thanked Bailey for the information she presented and expressed a desire to revisit the matter in April.
In public forum, Cherri Karr spoke, advocating for real-world basic skills to be implemented in education and asking the district to consider contacting retired teachers to volunteer at the school in order to assist younger children as they learn basic skills.
The board approved a request from Whitney Ag Teacher Brad Coffelt to allow FFA students to travel out of state for the 96th National FFA Convention. They will be going to Indianapolis next month.
The board also approved property bids for two unimproved lots in the district in the amounts of $1,200 and $2,000.
Superintendent McCullough presented the staff member of the month, Amanda Garrett, a paraprofessional. The nomination letter for Garrett read: “She’s a team player — someone who puts the needs of the team before themselves,” and “We are beyond blessed to have Ms. Garrett as part of our Whitney Elementary team.”
Director of State and Federal Programs Melissa Marbut presented an overview of the district’s ESL program.
In her presentation, she explained how the program works and what is required of both staff and students. Last year, WISD was serving 122 emergent bilingual students in total. There were 22 bilingual ESL certified staff members. The district had three waivers for ESL roles which could not be filled. The waivers last one school year; this year, those roles have been filled.
The Texas Education Code says that English is the basic language of this state, therefore public schools are responsible for providing a full opportunity for all students to become competent in speaking, reading, writing and comprehending the English language.
For schools with 20 emergent bilingual students in any grade level, there must be a bilingual education program. Whitney does not meet that threshold, so the district is required to have an English as a Second Language program.
The next regular board meeting is scheduled for Monday, November 13 at 6 p.m.
The Lakelander 