Bond approval in 2011, school eyes building in 2012 [Kilgore News Herald, Texas]

Dec. 31--As Kilgore's public schools move into the New Year, Superintendent Jody Clements said the district's main goals will be continuing educational success and constructing new campuses.

"This is kind of a transition year. We've had a lot of things going on," Clements said as he reflected on 2011. "Number one, we're going from the TAKS test to the STAAR test. Number two, we passed a bond and we're going toward a building plan in the beginning of 2012."

Kilgore ISD voters approved a $55 million bond package in May, which will fund the construction of a new middle school to replace Maude Laird Middle School and a new elementary school to replace the 80-year-old Kilgore Heights Elementary. The new schools will be constructed on a 100-acre tract of land that once contained Kilgore's drive-in theater. Clements said contractors are scheduled to begin clearing trees off of the land by early January.

In recent years, Clements said the district began a stricter focus on academics, a trend he hopes to continue through coming years.

"I think in looking at what Kilgore has done, we've had a lot of awards that we've won, I think our next push right now is preparing students for that next big test because it is a more difficult test," he said. "We're going to have to teach differently. We're going to have to teach at a higher level and our students are going to have to perform at a higher level. It's going to be a difficult task because we don't know what that higher level is yet. But our biggest focus for next year and the end of this year is going to be get our students academically to that next level.

"And that's not just on the test," Clements explained. " That's through dual-credits, through advanced classes, through our UIL things we're doing. We think all of those things help our kids academically because they're thinking at that higher level."

In the midst of the progress the school district is making, 2011 also included some low points for KISD.

In April, a group of four senior students admitted to deflating the tires of 39 school buses, which led to a missed day of school for KISD students. Though the act of vandalism was meant to be a harmless prank, the incident caused school officials to cancel classes that day, then extend the school day for two weeks in order for the district to make up for the lost day of attendance, which is determines the district's funding from the state legislature.

More recently, Kilgore school officials suspended an elementary school teacher after she reportedly slapped an autistic child on a field trip to the Kilgore Public Library.

As situations occur, Clements said he wants to assure the parents that KISD officials are reacting appropriately and taking measures to ensure the safety of all students.

"Here's the thing. I'm from Kilgore. I was born and raised here. This is important to me that this school system is effective and is taking care of business and doing what's right," Clements said. "When you're dealing with 3,800 students and 600 employees, there's going to be problems. You just can't avoid it. We need to be aware of those problems and we need to deal with them."

Clements said the teacher was placed on administrative leave for the remainder of the school year. When her contract expires, he plans to recommend that the school board not renew her contract.

"What I want folks to know is we're here for your kids and have a good educational system for your kids," he said. "It you do not feel like that's happening, we need to know what you're not happy with so we can look at it and see if those things can change to make it better. That's what we're about. This situation was a bad situation, but we're trying to make it to where it's better for our kids and where our kids are protected and they feel like they can come to school every day and feel safe and learn."

Clements said he was proud of the improvements the student made on their standardized test scores in 2011, even though the district did not receive a "recognized" rating from the Texas Education Agency.

"I think we've got a great system and we've made a lot of headway," he said. "I'll be reporting to the board at the January meeting that we had 40 areas of testing that we did. Thirty-five of those areas increased this year, three stayed the same and two went down. Those two that went down only slightly went down.

" We may not have the 'Recognized' sign across our building, but when you look at our individual kids and you look at our scores overall, our kids are doing better each and every year, with no exception. It's because of the things we're putting in place."

LOOKING FORWARD

While budgets remain tight and more cuts in state funding are expected, Clements said his outlook for 2012 includes increased academic success and smarter financial planning.

"Academically, we would like to continue to work toward improving success and would like to see our UIL teams be more successful," he said. " We've worked hard at that last year. We would like to get our facilities where they need to be through our bond project. Also, I would like to look at our programs and possibly bringing in something like an ROTC program.

"Budgets are going to be a big issue," he continued. " We're going to look at how to make another $1 million in cuts this year because the funding problem is still there. We've done a good job already. We're hoping to continue to do a good job to meet the needs of our district through budgeting."

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(c)2011 the Kilgore News Herald (Kilgore, Texas)

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