The Brownfield ISD Board of Trustees met on Monday evening, October 19 in regular session. The first order of business was to hear reports on construction progress of the new high school from Parkhill, Smith and Cooper, and also from Sandia Construction.
Their presentation included a slide show of pictures from inside the construction sight which showed exactly how far along they are. Currently, plans are to be in the new building when school returns after the Christmas break.
The slides showed that carpet had already been installed in many classrooms. Painting, ceiling, and tile work has been completed in many areas. In fact, they pointed out that work in the academic area was 85 – 90% done. In the CTE area (Vocational), work is 70% completed. The main gym is 60% completed and the Auxiliary Gym, which has just recently gotten started is 25% complete.
A spokesman from Sandia stated, “We have nearly all our materials to complete the project on site. If we have anything that we find was sent damaged, or if we damage anything, or if anything is missing, that is when we may be waiting for certain items to move ahead with full completion. But we do have the majority of needed completion items on site at this time.”
He did give an example of one situation. “We have all our toilets in and either installed or ready to be installed. But we don’t have toilet seats and we don’t know when they are coming. These are the types of things we just have no control over these days.”
Main gym
Auxiliary Gym
Asphalt work has begun and the asphalt work, which is Sandia’s job, on Cub Drive should start this week.
All in all, things are looking good, and while not progressing as quickly as hoped, should be ready by the start of the school after the Christmas break.
Assistant Superintendent Melissa Oliva gave an overview of district data so far. As more data is collected, principals will begin to give updates. She used combined district data for her presentation. She showed areas where BISD students are growing and where work needs to be done. Her data used Lexile points to show growth or where work needs to be done. The Lexile Framework for Reading is an educational tool that uses a measure called a Lexile to match readers with books, articles and other leveled reading resources.
Blue represents current Lexile points. Black is desired growth by this point in the year.
The district is exceeding the expected gains in most areas. Average scores have increased by nearly 2% from last year to this year. This is a district wide measurement. Overall, all were pleased with the progress the district is making..
There was some concern about whether or not the district is overloading teachers with all these programs. “It is not really that they are having to do any more with their classes. They have had some of this already and some has been replaced with other things, depending on what the adopted curriculum is. Is it new? Yes. But the teachers voted on all of this. We gave them options and what we are doing is what they chose,” stated Oliva.
Athletic Director Coach Aarrhon Flores gave an update on athletics. He stated that if all goes as expected, the Lady Cub Volleyball team will get their District Championship trophy on Saturday at Littlefield following their noon game. Flores stated he has booked the gym at Kermit on November 2 at 6:30 p.m. for Bi-District, with the most likely foe being Tornillo.
Lady Cub Cross Country finished in 2nd place in District and will be heading to Regional on October 22 at Mae Simmons. Rayleigh Perry earned 2nd and has a great time, with a possibility of heading to state. The BMS Cubs won the District Cross Country Meet.
Tennis will be playing in the Regional Meet at Andrews, facing Big Spring. “I give a lot of credit to Coach Hammons. He is heavily sought after and we are glad he is a home town boy and wants to stay here,” stated Flores.
Flores stated that the Cub Varsity football team did not lose a single player to grades this six weeks. “Out of 80 players at the high school level, Freshman, JV and up, we only lost 8 players to grades. I am proud of the job these guys are doing on the academic side of things.”
Girls Basketball practice starts on Wednesday this week.
Superintendent Chris Smith told the board that BISD and BIDCorp are working together to host a Job Fair in early November. “We will be having it at BMS. Initially it began as a way to help those who work at the Rudd Unit, but it will be opened to everyone. We have various employers in the area ready to come and help with this. When we get our new school up and going, we will have lots of opportunity to help with adult education, as far as helping make adults employable. We know that our students do better when their home life is more stable and when they don’t have to worry about the lights being on or if there is food to eat. We want to do what we can to help with these situations.”
The Superintendent’s Advisory Committee met last week. “This has been a goal of mine, to start meeting with students and to engage with them. It was so awesome to listen to them and get to talk to them in an open concept dialog. I learned so much and they learned from us. We got their input on some ideas, not necessarily academic, but culture. We talked about how they can contribute. It was a cross section of kids from band to athletics from grades 9 -12. We will take action on some of the things that came out of this meeting. This is how you get buy-in from students.”
District Recognitions were
Oak Grove Student of the Month- Nallely Acosta
Oak Grove Employee of the Month-Yolanda Pauda
Colonial Heights Employee of the Month-Emily Licon
BMS Employee of the Month- Alexaih Meil
BHS Employee of the Month- Sheryl Doty
Current BISD enrollment is 1637 which is up 27 from this point last year.
BHS – 450
BEC – 24
BMS – 363
Oak Grove – 435
Colonial Heights – 132
Local Policy Update 118 was approved. Smith pointed out that most of the update items were things BISD has already implemented.
Following regular business items, the Board went into a Closed Session. No action was taken upon their return to Open Session.
The board will next meet on Monday, November 15, at 6:30 p.m. in the Board Room of the BISD Ad Building.
