Multi-million Dollar Parking Problem

In today’s Boerne Star regarding the shortage of parking spaces already creating problems at the brand new, multi-million dollar high school:

“Kelly acknowledged that BISD officials were surprised by the parking problems that have plagued Champion High School since opening day because the new school has 79 more parking spaces than Boerne High School did last year and the number of students is virtually unchanged.Kelly said he now realizes that Boerne High School has better pedestrian access than Champion High School and that the streets around BHS provide alternatives to on-campus parking. Because Champion High School is relatively isolated, Kelly said students have fewer off-campus parking alternatives, thus there is more demand for on-campus parking at Champion this year than there was at BHS last year.“I feel that I should have anticipated this different setting as we planned parking for Champion High School; thus I feel it is necessary to correct our problem now,” Kelly said.”

Are you kidding me? BISD selects a site on a major highway, outside of any residential neighborhood, continues to resist building the required sidewalks (causing students to walk on the highway shoulder) and Kelly says he was surprised that the different setting created problems?!!

In addition to this expense, a BISD newsletter reported a while back that the school district
had to purchase additional buses (more drivers and fuel) for students close in to the school who would normally have walked to the old high school but can’t walk to the new one, due to its location on a major highway.

The average Kendall County resident looked at Kelly’s choice of a location when it was announced and saw problems. Why so close to the existing high school? Why put it on a major highway that is already expected to have congestion problems, with essentially one entrance in and out?
Mr. Haberstroh, who is both the Construction Bond Manager for BISD and sits on City Council, wears two hats on theses issues, which currently include failure to build a sidewalk, addressing proper road drainage so the City can take over Charger Boulevard and enforcement of the no parking agreement. How does he avoid potential conflicts of interest?

But the really astounding thing in this ‘problem,’ is the amount of tax dollars (by far our biggest county tax hit and growing every year!) we fork over and that those who are managing it did not ‘anticipate’ such an obvious problem in their choice of location.

Remember the public outrage at the per acre cost for the BISD land and being told that it was a ‘deal’? Was part of that deal related to the fact that at the same time this school location was being considered, two nearby properties were being planned for future development- The Trails of Herff Ranch and the Hagee property (now Esperanza)? Engineer, Mike Coyle, was hired by both The Trails of Herff Ranch and Esperanza. He was also sitting on City Planning and Zoning.
Didn’t this school location become a financial enhancement for these developments and their associates?

Before dismissing this idea, remember that Dr. Kelly wrote a letter, on BISD stationary, to the State Natural Resources Committee, supporting the approval for Esperanza’s water district. Dr. Kelly later attempted to downplay this letter of support as having been written by someone else and that he simply signed it. He has apparently stated he was not representing BISD. Dr. Kelly’s letter, in which he identified himself as the BISD Superintendent and was written on stationary with the district’s letterhead, was presented and read at the State Committee hearing by Mike Coyle.
A Boerne Star column, written by Dr. Kelly in support of Esperanza, is currently being used on Marlin Atlantis’ website as a glowing endorsement for their development corporation from a school district superintendent.

Is this simply sour grapes about development or no growth rhetoric? Not hardly - this is about cold hard cash- ours! Residential development, unlike commercial or even undeveloped land, costs taxpayers more in services than it brings in. Add to that cost poor location planning and you have to ask if taxpayers are underwriting private interests. There’s a lot of that going around these days!

Dr. Kelly says it is necessary to ‘correct our problem now.’ The ‘correction’ he is going to make is to spend more of our money- we will pay for his ‘failure to anticipate’. Taxpayers should ask if the school district- who works for us- has demonstrated common sense in future planning, school placements and whose best interests have been served.

Anonymous

Are we ready for growth?

It seems that all discussion by elected local government officials regarding growth in Kendall County lead to one conclusion: “Growth is coming and nothing can stop it.” Special interest groups publicly vilify anyone for even questioning this foregone conclusion.

It’s hard to believe this is what the majority of the citizens in Kendall County want. If they did they, wouldn’t be living here. Certainly long time residents do not want growth to affect their property and their way of life. Clearly, new residents don’t want it to change that much either; otherwise they wouldn’t have moved here in the first place. Local residents enjoy the small town atmosphere, away from the hustle and bustle of dense urban living.

There has been a lot of hoopla regarding the financial benefits to the local residents through reduced taxes and lower utility rates. It’s highly questionable that the residents will benefit at all, and just as likely that the taxes and utility rates will go up. However, if rapid dense development is in fact a forgone conclusion, the residents of this county should expect their elected local government officials to be mindful of their health and safety before concentrating on filling the developers pockets with profits, and their coffers with property taxes.

Health and Safety and Quality of Life are tremendously important issues for the public, but for some reason they are not even being discussed. Quality of Life is easy to define by a few simple questions: Do you enjoy feeling safe in your home? Do you enjoy feeling safe walking downtown in the evening? Do you enjoy driving to and from work free of traffic jams? Do you like being able to find parking place downtown and enjoy the beautiful little shops? Do you enjoy the quiet country atmosphere and the wildlife? Do your children enjoy our excellent school system? Do you enjoy the beautiful pristine Hill Country Rivers, streams and scenery? Do you want all of this to change? These are just a few Quality of Life Issues; I’m sure you can think of a few more.

Health and Safety is arguably the most critical issue. Mass development dramatically changes our environment, and can threaten the health and safety of the general public if not properly controlled. State agencies like the TCEQ have proven to be completely ineffective and disinterested, so it is up to our local government to protect us. The current City Ordinances and County rules are designed for rural low populated areas. If we are destined to live in a densely developed urban community, then our County rules and City Ordinances must be modified now to regulate this inevitability. These ordinances and rules must be in place before the development onslaught is in full stride.

Issues like impervious cover, flood control, water resources, water quality, and wastewater discharge are gravely important when faced with massive development. If huge wastewater treatment plants are to be constructed as proposed, the discharge from these plants need to be carefully analyzed for the environmental impact. Our County and City leaders should look to the highly urban areas in the state for guidance. They have had to deal with massive development and know first hand what problems lurk.
Highly urban cities like the City of Austin and counties like Travis have had to address these issues head on. Our City and county leaders must be proactive, they cannot simply just “let it happen” and be sorry later for the problems that result.

BISD - what do TAKS results really tell us about academic success?

Recent letters to the editor, a Boerne Star editorial and an "Inside BISD" column have all commented on the implications of TAKS results. The most often cited statistics are the "pass" rates for TAKS in these discussions. Unfortunately, these results are misleading and do little to inform a community about the actual academic abilities of students in a district or the quality of education our tax dollars are supporting.
The educational establishment in Austin buries the real implications of TAKS in curious scoring - raw scores are translated into a 'scaled score' that varies with every administration of the test. Each administration of the test uses a different conversion, supposedly to correct for differences in difficulty, but all are manipulated so that a scaled score of 2100 is a panel recommended passing score and 2400 is commended performance. But what does that mean to those of us who are used to needing a 90% or above to get an "A"?
The Association of Texas Professional Educators publishes a "TAKS Passing Standards Estimates Chart" , which translates the scale score into an equivalent percentage, using the April administration test. For 2006, the "met standard" on the eleventh grade English/Language Arts (ELA) portion of the TAKS had risen from previous years to the equivalent to getting 51% correct. The "panel recommended" standard eeked by at a slightly more stringent 58.9% and a requirement of a '2' or greater on the essay. I would encourage parents and taxpayers to go to the Texas Education Agency (TEA) website, look at released TAKS tests and check out the quality of the reading passages that students in 11th grade need to read and pass at a dismal 51% correct rate in order to graduate. The reading passages are closer in sentence complexity, structure and vocabulary to "see Jane run" than they are to "it was the best of times, it was the worst of times...".
In addition, although Boerne had 97% of its 11th grade class pass the ELA TAKS in 2006, it did not receive commended in ELA, which would have required that 25% of that class pass it at a commended level (equivalent to 84.9% correct answers).
An even more interesting indicator of the academic foundation our children are getting is something called the TSI, for Texas Success Initiative. It is also called the "Higher Education Readiness Component". What this eduspeak means is "are these children ready and able to do college level work when they graduate?". A positive TSI result requires a scaled score of 2200 (72.6% correct) on the TAKS and a "3" on the writing portion. Only 54% of 11th grade students in 2006 achieved that distinction. The ethnic breakdown was 56% white and 44% Hispanic passed at the TSI standard in ELA. By contrast, 78% of students passed the math TAKS at the TSI standard.
To David Maltzberger's hypothetical question "how many local taxpayers would be satisfied if Anglo elementary children scored in the 60 percentile..." I would add, "how many local taxpayers are happy with the reality that only 54% of the children in this district graduate college-ready in literacy skills? These results indicate a serious need in our district to improve the teaching of reading and writing.
What can be done? The most cost effective way to improve literacy rates is to focus on early grades. The Texas State Dyslexia statute requires districts to aggressively identify students with reading difficulties and provide intensive remediation from qualified teachers. The statute requires every campus to have a dyslexia designee and that person should be qualified to teach reading. Experts with Scottish Rite say that districts should be offering these kinds of reading programs to at least 3% of the student population in order to fully comply with the law.
A zero-retention policy in K and 1st grade with intensive tutoring for students struggling with reading would be more cost effective than retention. In 2006, BISD retained approximately 32 K and 1st graders. Every time a student is retained, it obligates taxpayers to fund another year of education for that student. In 2006, the average per pupil expenditure was $9522, which means that 32 students retained cost taxpayers over $300,000 in today's educational dollars. Considering that per pupil expenditures have increased at an average rate of over 10% per year since 1993, by the time that extra year gets tacked on 12 years from now, the cost will be substantially greater.
For those students who still lag in reading and writing, more emphasis should be placed on staff development and training, and less on purchasing computer-based programs such as Lexia and Plato Learning. Trained and dedicated teachers teach children to read and write, not computers.
Quality reading programs cannot stop once a child leaves elementary school. If they are still struggling in reading and writing, secondary students need access to effective, age-appropriate programs. All secondary campuses need meaningful and effective reading programs for these students, taught by knowledgeable staff.
Drop the requirement of a semester SAT/ACT prep class for graduation and substitute instead a required semester persuasive writing course. High SAT and ACT scores are predictive of one thing only - how well a student will perform on other standardized tests. For those students taking pathways other than college, to require them to spend an entire semester practicing taking a test they will not use is counterproductive. All will benefit from being able to write well and persuasively. SAT/ACT prep can remain an elective for those who do want to score well on these tests.
Finally, parents need to be proactive. If your child is having reading difficulties, educate yourself, ask questions and find out how your child is performing on grade level and age level equivalents.
If we, as a community, will put the same effort and passion into demanding that our students read well as we have in naming the new high school, we can assure that all our children will be able to read whatever name is eventually attached to that campus.

Thresa Fraser