Humble ISD ‘nother budget meeting

Tonight wasn’t as stressful nor as long as last Tuesday’s board meeting. The board looked like they were fresh and on their toes. Had their notes (emails – the good, bad and the ugly) and made decisions based on what they had in front of them. A few comments were noteworthy, Dr. Sconzo says: “Under the law, we don’t have a way to fix ourselves.” This is so true. This is what I wish the Ledge would understand, really understand. So many think the schools have enough money, so many people in the community think the schools have enough money and just don’t know how to manage it. One of the things I learned tonight, Mr. Huberty gave kudos to Lynn Lynn, Asst. Superintendent of Finance, who singlehandedly has saved the school district large sums of money by financial maneuvering. Mr. Huberty even said other school districts are copying us, how we did it, or should I say how Ms. Lynn did it. Mr. Huberty also said, “we can’t fix this problem locally.” Another memorable quote, “If Austin does nothing, we are in trouble as a district.” Wow, I think we are in trouble now, and I’m sure they (the board) feels the same way. But…if Austin does nothing, “we are soup,” as Mr. Lapeze put it. More kudos went to Charlotte Hoya, the webmaster (suppose I have another mentor) for her fantastic work on the website, by Dr. Sconzo.

Again, this is a state problem and we need to must get them to do something about it. I still feel, that most who are in office now, Joe Crabb, Speaker Craddick, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst, and Gov. Perry have made it perfectly clear that education funding is the furthest thing from their minds for the next session. That should speak volumes to all of us who can and should vote, and vote them out. Unless we want to see our school district being faced with a $25 million deficit, on top of the cuts we have been making for a number of years, next year, we need to make some changes. We will be opening another high school next year and I keep wondering, with our critical woes, how in the world we are going to be able to do that. Mr. Lapaze used the words “draconian decisions,” when referring to next year, if the tax increase does not pass in November.

Onto the juicy stuff, looks like the secondary teachers are safe this year, and the board possibly won’t be getting any more hate email. They voted in favor of 5 out of 7 teaching periods with a master schedule of 32. They opted for more students per class periods. But–if I’m not mistaken, they talked about (prior to the vote) that was for the core areas, math, science and english. The rest would adopt 6 of 7 and the instructional coaches, athletic coaches, smaller learning community coordinators and dance coaches will be teaching 1-3 periods. Thus, my chances of getting hired back on are nil, not that I’m sure I had a chance anyway. Que sera sera…

Please visit some Q & A with Vernon Reed (an Humble ISD parent who recently ran for school board) and Dr. Sconzo. Some great Q & A from those two.