School board votes to allow foreign exchange students to participate in commencement ceremony, approves new scoreboard and teacher stipends

By Carla McKeown/Breckenridge Texan

It was standing home only when Tuesday night’s Breckenridge Impartial Faculty District Board of Trustees meeting obtained begun at 6:30 p.m. Various subject areas of curiosity on the May possibly 10 agenda introduced the group together and nevertheless divided the college board at their normal every month meeting.

Soon after the Students and Teachers of the Thirty day period, as properly as the Valedictorian, Salutatorian and Teachers of the 12 months, had been introduced and honored, the group thinned out, leaving just a handful of local citizens targeted on two difficulties — this year’s commencement ceremony and the feasible installation of a new soccer scoreboard.

A lot more than an hour into the conference, following the bulletins and presentations, numerous of these even now in the board room waited eagerly to see if this year’s foreign trade learners would be authorized to participate in the forthcoming graduation assistance for the Breckenridge Large College Course of 2022. And, it was yet another hour ahead of people interested in a new scoreboard for the soccer stadium located out the destiny of that task.

(Simply click here to read through about the learners and instructors who ended up honored at the meeting.)

Graduation Ceremony

A person of the topics on the meeting’s agenda was whether or not to permit two foreign trade pupils to participate in the commencement things to do with the relaxation of the Course of 2022.

The concern was first brought to the awareness of the college board when BHS senior Shalyn Owen started a petition in March on Transform.org to enable the pupils to choose portion in the ceremony, even even though they would not be formally graduating with the regional college students.

Far more than 1,700 folks signed the on the web petition in aid of Owen’s request. Click here to read through the Breckenridge Texan’s very first article about the petition and the school district’s feedback on the scenario.

Then, on March 21, Owen and Breckenridge resident Bo Asher signed up to discuss at the college board meeting, and a father or mother of a senior also spoke to the board through the dialogue portion of the assembly. Additionally, more than 20 pupils, mothers and fathers and other people attended the conference in assist of Owen and the overseas trade learners. Click listed here to read through much more about that conference.

However, the matter was not on the agenda for the following conference in April. College Board President Graham Reaugh and BISD Superintendent Bryan Allen said they did not understand there was ongoing interest in the challenge, but they explained they would place the item on the May perhaps agenda.

When Tuesday’s conference eventually received to the item on the matter, Allen explained he had presented the challenge a ton of believed.

“I’ll be trustworthy, I’ve experienced a whole lot of a great deal of sleepless evenings, pondering about this pretty subject matter and what the suitable detail to do is. And I can sit below and I could almost certainly argue both facet of the argument quite very easily,” he stated. “… the conclusion I have come down to sort of strike me, really, a person working day very last week. I’m a Put up-It note man … I utilized to have Submit-It notes all above my desk, and when I moved below, I took them all down and I place them in a folder.

“I came across that folder the other working day,” Allen ongoing. “And one of the Submit-It notes on there is something that I heard in a meeting, but it was just merely the text, ‘The kid must get.’ You know, in faculty company, we have guidelines and treatments that are penned, and we have them in position, and we have them in location for a rationale. But at the end of the working day, if we’re not providing the kids the possibility to expertise a good superior college expertise, or no matter what level they are at, then I think which is all me. That is on the chief of the district to try out to correct that. So, my suggestion is likely to be … to permit the foreign exchange college students in the course of ’22 to participate in things to do on Might 27.”

Reaugh, on the other hand, did not agree with Allen and reiterated his primary argument versus the ask for on the basis that the ceremony ought to be reserved for college students who experienced satisfied all of the prerequisites for graduation. Considering that the international trade pupils only attended university in this article for a person 12 months, they could not have some particular Texas prerequisites for graduation. For that reason, they get a certificate of attendance, somewhat than a diploma. The present-day BISD plan permits learners who are receiving diplomas and certificates of completion, as very well as specific instruction learners who acquire certificates of attendance, to participate in the ceremony.

“I still stand by that I do not want to devalue graduation for youngsters that have labored for 12 a long time to go via there and get this,” Reaugh stated. “So we get started performing a person time, you know, give up this or (make a) a person time…allowance, we’re heading down a slippery slope. And then what did these issues count for?”

University board member Nic McClymond built a movement to let international trade college students in the course of 2022 an possibility to participate in BHS commencement actions. Carrol Kanady clarified that the motion would generate an exemption to the coverage and that the initial plan would however be in location then, she seconded the movement. Board customers McClymond, Kanady, Jimmy McKay, Paul Lippe and Chad Townson voted in favor of the proposal. Reaugh and Roy Russell voted versus it. With the the vast majority in favor of the one particular-time exemption, the movement passed.

Following the vote, individuals who had been at the meeting for that agenda item congratulated Owen for standing up for her fellow college students and for what she considered in. On the sidewalk outside the conference place, Owen could not contain her exhilaration. “Oh my gosh, I’m so content,” she explained. “We did it!”

New Scoreboard

Another merchandise on the agenda that has been of desire to lots of Buckaroo enthusiasts was the proposal to purchase a new scoreboard for the football stadium.

BISD Athletic Director Casey Pearce initially introduced the matter right before the university board at the February assembly, where he reported that the recent scoreboard is bulb-based and difficult to fix. He presented numerous choices for new, digital scoreboards that have video and promotion options. At the previously board meeting, Pearce also talked about how the digital scoreboard will give teaching options for the pupils using Job and Technologies Education classes.

At Tuesday night’s conference, he offered the board with a bid from Blackfin Sports activities Consulting for $386,850 for a electronic scoreboard to be found in the northeast conclude of the stadium. Pearce reported that bid is $100,000 to $110,000 considerably less than the other bids. He also explained he has “strong interest” from at least 5 community businesses, as effectively as from 12 people today and enterprises in Stephens County that are present booster club sponsors. There are four advised sponsorship degrees, ranging from $75,000, paid out in five once-a-year installments of $5,000, to $12,500, paid in five annual installments of $2,500.

“If you get a prospect to generate by (Abilene Christian University)…the new baseball scoreboard and their setup is just what this set up would be,” Pearce stated. “It’s the exact same sizing board that they just installed, and this organization did it about a month back. I guess Spring Break is when they debuted that new scoreboard for ACU baseball.”

The recent scoreboard was mounted in 1998. The electronic scoreboard could past 12 to 15 several years, Pearce mentioned. Following that, the technologies will probable be out-of-date and will need to have to be replaced.

“I’m not declaring that it’s not required, and I like the technologies piece, specifically with our CTE packages, you know, we’re seeking to improve those people, but I’m also wanting at 16 openings for lecturers,” Kanady mentioned. She went on to specific problem that if local firms sponsor the scoreboard at the advised levels, they could not have sufficient to donate to other BISD corporations, this kind of as the band or cheer groups.

“I’m not indicating it’s not necessary, but it’s a good deal of revenue,” she claimed.

McClymond created a movement to accept the Blackfin proposal, and Russell seconded the movement. McClymond, Russell, Reaugh, McKay, Lippe and Townson voted in favor of accepting the proposal, and Kanady voted versus it.

Recruitment/Retainment Stipends

Superintendent Allen instructed to the board users that BISD use some of the ESSER (Elementary and Secondary University Unexpected emergency Aid) cash to supply extra incentives to lecturers who arrive to Breckenridge or who keep on operating for the school district. ESSER is a federal grant method approved as a result of the Coronavirus Assist, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act.

He proposed two possibilities for comprehensive-time teacher stipends — $2,500 or $2,000 — and the faculty board unanimously accredited the $2,500 choice for the 2022-23 school year. Part-time BISD workforce will get fifty percent of that total. The stipends will be broken up into a few payments — $1,500 to be compensated in August, $500 in November or December, and $500 in May well.

Allen mentioned a single significant detail for everyone to fully grasp is that the stipends are coming from the ESSER cash, which will very likely not be available in foreseeable future yrs.

“This is not some thing that you are going to financial institution on from yr to calendar year,” he claimed. “I mean, this is just essentially grant-funded it’s below until the cash operates out. And when the dollars operates out, then we possibly will not be equipped to fit that into the finances, you know, shifting forward. But I think it’s a wonderful chance for us to reward the folks that are keeping and to help out individuals new people coming in also.”

Other small business

At the commencing of Tuesday’s meeting, Brittany Edgar, secretary to the superintendent, swore in the freshly re-elected school board members, Carrol Kanady, Jimmy McKay and Roy Russell.

The faculty board also authorised the subsequent:

• A contract with GermBlast An infection Handle Services to give disinfection companies for the 2022-23 university yr
• To order business office technology kits with ESSER funds
• To acquire a 2013 Chevrolet Silverado K3500 perform truck and a 2022 Chevrolet Traverse LS from Bayer Chevrolet-Buick-Cadillac
• An agreement with Communities in Universities of the Major Nation
• The selecting of Catherine Schmidt as the district’s special education and learning director and Shelby Copeland as an eighth quality background teacher.

 

Cutline, leading image: BISD Athletic Director Casey Pearce talks to the Board of Trustees at the May perhaps 10 conference about a proposed new scoreboard for Buckaroo Stadium. (Image by Tony Pilkington/Breckenridge Texan)

 

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