MCISD reviews annual TAPR

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MCISD reviews annual TAPR

Thu, 01/14/2021 - 07:29
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The Madisonville Consolidated Independent School District (MCISD) held their monthly meeting for January Monday and reviewed the district’s Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR).

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Texas students did not take the annual STAAR test during the 2019-20 school year, rendering much of the information even more outdated than usual. The encompassed test scores would have first been reviewed by district officials in August of 2019.

An accountability rating was not given due to the pandemic and lack of modern testing, but the district earned an ‘A’ rating in last year’s report.

Assistant Superintendent Dr. Keith West, who presented the report to the board, focused largely on the school’s demographics and its number of economically disadvantaged students.

“The tie that binds those groups is that three-fourths of our kids are economically disadvantaged,” said West.

According to West, this statistic is mainly determined by the number of students enrolled in the free or reduced lunch program. These statistics are collected by outside entities and not monitored by the district itself.

“Academically, we are unaware of any (other) school district in the state of Texas with 74% economically disadvantaged (students) that is an ‘A’ school district,” said Superintendent Keith Smith. “We do extremely well academically because we treat our children as we treat any other child of God, we look at them all the same way and treat them all the same. Our teachers and our principals should be commended for that.”

The annual STAAR tests will be administered online beginning in 2022. The district has allotted funds for more laptops to prepare for this transition, but may face other issues when the time comes.

“One thing we cannot prepare for, what we have zero control over, is how much bandwidth we have and if it will be sufficient the day we give the test,” said Smith. “That is going to be a major challenge going forward.”

The board also heard an independent audit of the district’s 2020 fiscal year by Robert Belt of Belt Harris Pechacek, LLLP. The district began the year with a fund balance of $6.9 million and ended it with a balance of $9.9 million, resulting in a net change of roughly $3 million.

“That is a big bump in fund balance for the year, which is excellent news,” said Belt.

When asked by Smith if he felt the district was in strong financial standing, Belt said he did.

“Especially given the fact that we are probably fixing to go through two years of budget cuts, we need to have a strong fund balance to deal with that,” said Smith.

Based on the 2019-20 school year data, MCISD received a superior financial rating.

The board also approved an extension of its employee leave program for individuals who test positive for COVID-19 or are forced to quarantine due to close contact with an exposed person. The program, which expired after the first semester, will now last until the conclusion of the school year and protect employees forced to miss time due the virus, regardless of where they contracted it or were exposed to it.

Smith also touched on the board’s subcommittees and credited their existence for much of the overall success the district has seen in recent years. He asked the board members to consider each committee, which have no more than three members, and which they may be interested in sitting on in the near future.

The committees have still been active but have not been reshuffled since board member Bo Williams was elected in 2019.

“If we are going to continue to grow and be successful as a district, we have to have a roadmap and we have to have targets that we see ourselves hitting in (the coming years),” said Smith. “Madisonville is blessed geographically in that we sit at the crossroads of (SH 21 and Interstate 45), we are poised to see some growth at some point in time, tremendous growth quite possibly. But if we don’t prepare ourselves as a school district, there’s a possibility that some of that growth might pass us by.”

The five current board committees include Long Range Planning, Policy, Finance, Buildings and Facilities and Instructional Technology.

At the beginning of the meeting, the board read a resolution recognizing its students and employees of the month for January. Students of the month included Graycen Mitchell (Elementary), Jaylynn Warren (Intermediate), Jhenifer Mejia Parada (Jr. High) and Taylor Barrett (High School). The employees of the month were Janel Jones and Sara Villarreal of the Elementary campus.

The MCISD students of the month for December included Gabby Jimenea (Elementary), Niomie Gonzalez (Intermediate), Hadley Bridges (Jr. High) and Callie Tilton (High School). The employees of the month for December were Erica Blakley and Carrie Rose from the Intermediate campus.