Thorndale ISD

Volume 1, Issue 5: 10/13/23

Greetings Bulldogs! Happy Friday! 

Upcoming Events - October 12th - October 29th 2023:

For the most up-to-date information on upcoming events, please visit our Thorndale ISD website. However, here are some highlights of important dates below:

National Principals Month:

Please help me recognize and celebrate our 3 amazing principals for Principal Appreciation Month! They all devote COUNTLESS hours to supporting their students and their staff and I am proud to watch and support the projects and programs they establish and nurture for the best interest of our students.

Exciting Work Being Done in TISD:

We will have a friendly guest on campus Friday (today) and early next week. They will be visiting all of our spaces, facilities, and grounds. He will be joined over the next few weeks by different contracted individuals to assess everything from the floors, to the roofs and everything in between!

This visit is following our Monday, 10/9/23 board meeting where we presented a new partnership for ]services involving a detailed facilities assessment, a capacity report,developing a 5 & 10 year facilities needs list, scheduling community meetings, and much more!

This is just the kickoff work to determine a true long term facilities vision and long term planning for the future of Thorndale ISD. I think we can all agree that we have a lot of facility needs across this district and determining how to highlight the great things while also improving what we can afford to improve over the foreseeable future is a big goal of our board and our leadership team.

Right now, there is no clear item or need that is going to be the focus. Instead, we will be assembling a facilities committee, which will include representatives from all across our community and district, to oversee the findings of our facilities assessment and determine the scope and projects to be considered.

If you are interested in joining the committed group of community members in being a part of the district facilities committee, please simply email me at Zack.Kleypas@thorndale.txed.net 

I have a few important tenets as we start this work:

1. Every decision should reflect the best interest of our students
2. Everything that needs improving should be considered
3. Not everything can be improved all at once
4. What cannot be improved right now, needs to be intentionally planned and communicated
5. Every decision should make sense now, in 5 years, in 10 years, and in 25 years.

Please stay tuned for updates!

Did You Know? - School Finance Edition!

Last week we talked about the complexity of school funding and important terms like basic school allotment, local property taxes, state aid, etc. The key takeaway was the cup analogy. The more kids IN ATTENDANCE the bigger the cup, and thus the more money the district receives.

Now that we have discussed how our cup gets filled,  let's briefly discuss the fact that there are not just one, but two separate cups (we will call them buckets) that school districts can spend money from. Below are two great images that explain the two different funds and some examples of what the money can be used for.

1.Maintenance & Operations (M&O)                                        2. Interest & Sinking (I&S)

The part that I think is the most important to understand is that a district CANNOT move money between the two funds/buckets. It isn’t like a checking and savings account where you can simply move money back and forth.

So where do these funds come from? 

The M&O portion is what comes from local property taxes and state aid that we talked about last week (the cup). Every district in the state would love a bigger M&O for many reasons, specifically to increase salaries. 

Did you know that in most districts, salaries make up 80-85% of the district's M&O budget? That means only 15-20% is left for all the other expenses like utilities, supplies, repairs, etc.

Another important factor of the M&O is that state law establishes a maximum M&O tax rate and has a system where it is continuously compressing - getting lower. Thankfully, the state contribution increases each time it compresses (to ensure you still have a full cup) but it means that we can’t try to get more money. We are stuck. Make sense so far?

The I&S is completely different, as it is our debt, and thus it comes from passing bonds, which is sort of like taking out a loan/mortgage. Know the last time TISD passed a bond? 1996. Thus, unlike many districts across Texas, Thorndale ISD has completely paid off our debt and has $0 I&S debt. To put that into perspective, according to TEA data only 157 out of the 1207 districts in Texas have $0 I&S debt. 

It is a great thing to have no debt, but as many of you know, we have some very serious facility needs in terms of renovations, increasing capacity (portables), etc. that are too expensive to do without accessing I&S funds… aka a bond. 

Next time we will talk a bit about bonds and how much bond money a district can receive.

To wrap up this week’s School Finance Edition, I will leave you with this image to put our state's situation into perspective … 

Source: Texas Public School Funding | Money for Schools - RYHT. 

Update - Leader in Me Grant & System:

In August we were approached by the Leader in Me to renew our contract. For those unfamiliar with The Leader in Me, it is the program/curriculum that TISD (and many other districts) use to teach character development and meet state requirements regarding certain health, safety, alcohol/drug awareness, etc topics. Here is more information if you want it: Questions & Answers About Leader in Me. 

I believe it is a great program, and we are working through fidelity and accountability of implementation. Stay tuned for more info on how that is going.

The reason I bring it up is because TISD received $38,447.77 in grant funds over 3 years. These funds help provide TISD items that will help teachers/campuses deliver instruction that has not been available before, including posters, student workbooks, staff training manuals, and even puppets - ask Abby Jones about the puppets :). 

Additionally, our grant and district funds secure training/coaching visits from the experts. We used one of these to reboot and kickstart the year in August in professional development for all staff. As an admin team, we have decided to use some of those coaching days to establish a student leadership group. In fact, it will be two groups and will encompass 3rd-5th grade leaders and 6th-12th grade leaders.

These groups will be called the Superintendent’s Student Lighthouse Council. Here is a bit more about these councils: Superintendent's Leader in Me Council 

More information and outcomes to come!

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Most sincerely,

Zack Kleypas
Superintendent
Thorndale ISD
#TISDStrivingForExcellence

“Keep improving, always, in all ways.”