Brittany Kelley
KYLE — The Hays CISD Education Foundation hosted the annual State of the District Thursday, Oct. 15, with an address from Superintendent Dr. Eric Wright.
He first discussed the growth that is present in the district. According to demographers, the district is estimated to be at 45,435 students for the 2035-36 school year. Currently, enrollment is at 25,439. However, the numbers have been difficult to estimate over the past few years, often leading to incorrect numbers when planning for the budget. This is because student enrollment has been more conservative than it previously was, due to several factors, he said.
The biggest reason is due to the new vouchers approved by Gov. Greg Abbott, said Wright. These vouchers have a flat check of $10,000 per student — no matter the school attendance, which varies from the public school funding that is reliant on students being present daily — and allow students to attend private charter schools. There are 278 children within the district’s boundaries utilizing these vouchers, said Wright, though there are some that received them, but weren’t accepted into the private schools.
“We have a substantial amount of kids that received vouchers, but weren’t accepted into private schools and so, that’s part of the equation. Of the ones that received vouchers, about 73% of them were already in a private school. So, about 27% were our students last year and are now in a private school setting,” said Wright. “And the majority of those, of that [27%], are in a prekindergarten program and hopefully, they’ll come to us next year as kindergarteners.”
Additionally, there are approximately 300 students that are simply not enrolled, revealed the superintendent. He shared that students that were previously attending the schools can be seen around town, but are not in either private or public schools, for fear of their parent(s) being deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The students shared that their primary fear is their family being separated because if their mother or father gets deported, they will be split up. Ultimately, this is causing these students to go uneducated, he said.
If it wasn’t for the vouchers and this national policy, Wright shared that the demographers’ numbers would be more accurate. Still, the 3,500 homes built each year are holding steady at 0.8 kids per household.
Wright said that, on the subject of housing, the district is planning to cut the ribbon on its affordable housing community, Live Oak Commons, off of Highway 21 Friday, Nov. 6. The 362 units have been under construction for the past year and will soon be filled with Hays CISD employees. Though, there are still more than 500 individuals on the waitlist, said Wright.
He also noted that High School #4 broke ground recently, with several 60-foot piers in the ground to ensure that the building stays safe and stable in the future, as it was built on “suspicious” soil. Despite the facility being “massive,” Wright said that the rapid growth in the district is making staff and the board of trustees shift their mindset.
“Looking at our numbers and looking at the state’s revenue shortfall for schools, we’ve had to change directions in whether we build new buildings or whether we add on to existing buildings. So, with our board’s help, we changed our philosophy and we changed our district standard,” explained the superintendent. “We increased capacity thresholds at our elementary schools to 900, our middle schools to 1,200 and our high schools are now 2,800 to 3,200.”
The reason behind these increases is because to open an elementary school is $5 million, a middle school is $8 million and a high school is $15 million. The funding for these have been depleting the maintenance and operations (M&O) side of the tax rate, said Wright, so by instead adding extensions to the existing schools, the district can save money by avoiding hiring all new staff, filling entire libraries, etc.
As a result, Lehman, Hays and Johnson high schools will have additional facilities built. Johnson’s opened up last spring, said Wright, while Lehman's and Hays' are still under construction. Each of the seven middle schools will also have added academic wings in the future.
For the elementary schools, Kyle Elementary School is receiving a two-story renovation to accommodate the new student capacity, while Fuentes Elementary School will replicate Elm Grove Elementary School for its construction.
New weight rooms were implemented at the high schools to also help with this M&O rate, said Wright. The facilities can now hold up to 300 students, reducing the weight room periods from seven to three. Now, the coaches that were once stuck in the weight room all day can instead teach math, English and more.
Other athletic improvements include the new multipurpose activity centers that allow students to practice safely from the extreme Texas heat and turf on the baseball and softball fields. The latter has resulted in money generation, as, due the district’s central location, many competitions are being held here.
Fine arts gyms at the three high schools have also been installed and the new LHS auditorium was opened last year. This was a necessity, said Wright, since the Hays Performing Arts Center was continuously booked up, preventing outside use from occurring. With the new facility, students have more opportunities to perform.
He then covered student success over the past year:
• JHS and HHS marching bands made it to the state marching contest
• LHS received a gold meal in mariachi
• HHS mariachi competed in the University Interscholastic League for the first time
• LHS, HHS and JHS water polo made playoffs, with JHS making it to the regional semifinals
• JHS girls basketball team made it to the playoffs for the first time
• JHS baseball and softball teams made it to playoffs
• 2,164 students earned advanced placement credit for college
• 522 students earned college credit through dual enrollment at Austin Community College
“Next, college and military readiness. This is something that we track because we want our kids to be ready for what comes next. So, if you look at the district total, it’s 83% … [and] if you look at our comprehensive high schools, [their average is] more than 90%,” said Wright. “So, the district [average] is skewed by Live Oak Academy, but I wouldn’t trade [it] for anything because it provides special, nuanced education for kids that don’t fit in at a 3,000-student high school. So, I’ll trade a few points to make sure that we take care of our kids and that’s what we do.”
Wright shared that the career and technical education program is also thriving, as many students partake and prepare for their careers outside of the school, including finance, plant science, automotive, culinary arts and more.
Near the end of Wright’s address, he forewarned that the board didn’t endorse anything he was about to say, but that, as a superintendent on his way out, he had some thoughts to share: “Public schools have become villains of sorts because of the governor’s agenda to get vouchers. I’ve always told everyone in Hays CISD that we go by the 98%, 2% rule. Ninety-eight percent of the people and kids are going to be amazing. They’re going to do everything that you do. They’re going to do it well and then, 2% are going to be major challenges. You can focus on the 2% and every time somebody screws up in that 2% at any school across the state, you’ll see it posted by our governor. Do you think that bodes well for people that are in college right now that are thinking about being teachers, if their own governor is saying how bad public education is? It’s why we have a teacher shortage. It’s why we have an administrative shortage and at some point, we’ve got to stop vilifying public education.”
He continued on, stating that the state leadership is focused on the wrong issues in schools: “I still don’t understand why we just can’t find politicians that focus on unification, instead of trying to divide. Why can’t we unite?”
The state should focus on funding the schools, emphasized Wright. For example, the state continuously makes mandates that it refuses to pay for, expecting already underfunded school districts to foot the bill, he said. The district also only receives $45 million for special education, while regularly having to make up the remaining $45 million it still needs.
“Put that into perspective: We’re talking about boys in girls' sports instead of funding special education,” he stated.
Wright stressed that education is an investment that the state should be willing to make, adding that “education is the backbone of democracy.”
“So, in my opinion — as I fade into the sunset — we’ve got to do something different. We've been playing this game for how many years, since the late '80s. We have this testing regimen, where the state board decides what our Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills are going to be. They decide what our materials are going to be. The elected officials decide what the Texas Education Code is going to be, what the Texas Administrative Code is going to be [and] how schools are going to be measured and we follow it to the letter of the law. Local control has pretty much been obliterated and yet, when something goes wrong, they blame the schools when all we do is follow what they give us,” said the superintendent. “We’ve got to stop listening to politicians campaigning because we’ve got to kill the negativity and we need to turn the tide because if we don’t, we’re all going to suffer as a result of it.”
