The first step to resolving underperformance is to have a strong understanding of the specific gaps. Sometimes the smallest of details can have large impacts. It doesn't have to be expensive of time intensive. It takes proper data analysis and isolation of problem areas. Finally, bring together those in a position of direct influence (especially parents) who will collaborate to problem-solve, find solutions, turnaround, and not only execute those solutions but get others' buy-in to ensure maximum impact across multiple areas.

I would ensure that teachers and students have the resources they need. I would look into alternative methods of teaching (example: Project Based Learning or Integrated Study where history, literature, and art can be interwoven and studied together). Teachers could have a student teacher from a local college as an intern, giving the teacher more time with students.

Identify waste, fraud, and abuse in the current budget and, in part, redirect a portion of the excess proceeds to hire high-quality teachers. Having excellent teachers in the classroom is the best way to improve student outcomes.

DNR

There is a clear connection between emotional well-being and academic excellence. It’s not surprise that with the current environment at school, students are not allowed to perform optimally. We do not need more added mental health initiatives, but we do need to prioritize a return to traditional normal and shed the fear and shame that has dominated our schools this year.

DNR

I believe our new metrics with the recent STAAR Testing may tell an even more compelling story. We are slowly shifting backwards in our commitments to our students and need to dive deeper into why. Our teachers are amazing and the work they put in is on par with other highly successful districts. We need to form an excellence committee that can analyze each of these metrics and cross compare with those more successful ISD’s. The hope is that we can find those specific outliers that pull our overall score downward and then can start to focus on improving those areas.

DNR

Tailor the delivery of curriculum to student needs. Have parents, students, and classroom teachers provide input on curriculum determination. Then have parents and classroom teachers on the actual voting committee. Provide supplemental resources for subject enhancement. If after the first testing, students underperform, provide tutoring for the student and evaluation of needs for teacher improvement. Additionally, hire experienced teachers and pay them enough to retain. Then expect only the best teachers to flourish in a supportive but results-driven environment.

District leaders were slow to decide and share with parents a plan to return to school. This created a logistical nightmare for working parents, like myself, and led to a lot of unnecessary uncertainty. Neighboring districts actually had plans so it could have been done. We could have also allowed more options in the first 4 weeks. Other districts allowed the use of school buildings and had boots on the ground supervising, letting working families keep open a critical avenue.

DNR

Our DSISD officials should have listened to feedback from parents and the community, allowed for medical exemptions when necessary without intervening in medical decisions for children, made rapid changes as conditions remained stable and worked to lessen restrictions whenever possible when harms outweighed benefits.

DNR

At the onset of the pandemic, The boards attempt to create a committee to analyze the incoming health information was one of the good decisions the board made at the start. The subsequent failures followed within that committee and the reaction by the board to accept tainted recommendations shows us that our model for committee’s decision-making process is broken. Regardless of how the pandemic trended this COVID committee pushed members out that had differing opinions on the recommendations, and those actions reduced the ability to discover alternative strategies to combat COVID. This one-[...]

DNR

Technology and access. I believe education's future classroom will rely on multiple methods of access. Need for additional technological "backbone" resources will only continue to increase and parent/teacher/student frustration should be eliminated. I think any future building recommendations should include a robust technology component.

Planning with circumstances that changed daily was hard and unenviable. The most important piece was getting schools open - credit to the board for making that happen. But, it's taken too long to revisit protocols for flexibility.

Children have been playing sports without masks since last summer, but they're still required at recess, PE, and at their desks even while socially distant.

Children shouldn't be isolated from one another at lunch.

Combining in-person and virtual teaching in the same classrooms is problematic. Teachers have to straddle two completely different audience needs requiri[...]

Better communication was needed from the board to the students/parents/teachers regarding how the virtual learning would be handled.

While I’m impressed with how our schools were able to quickly innovate and adapt, I view public education functions most optimally under a traditional curriculum where technology is used as an enhancement or supplement to education rather than a substitute for education. Any future use of permanent technology should have to meet rigorous budget approval standards prior to initiation.

DNR

The Hope and desire of every person is to return back to a pre-covid structure. We have seen that online learning is not a sustainable model for this age range and there are many downsides to removing the human element to teaching that our teachers provide in the classroom. There may be new costs to address sanitization procedures in our schools but a full reevaluation of how our schools are laid out should not be warranted at this time. We have a bigger problem at hand and that is our high growth rate and that issue will be at the forefront of everyone’s mind as we start the new school yea[...]

DNR

I have already advocated for a breathing space to determine what future schools should look like. I think the community should thoughtfully address what worked and didn't work during the COVID period (and look at each student, since needs varied) and then re-engineer the schools that will benefit our students. Then we can determine how to serve the needs of our students.

The PASA presentation did not address the long-term impact of COVID on enrollment. Planning for growth cannot be stopped, but hard questions have to be asked about the use of current space/resources before making the determination that another bond must be passed to build more. IF, a determination is made that there needs to be some kind of expansion at MS and/or HS, there has to be conversation about creating flexible/functional spaces that can accommodate multiple learning formats (moveable walls, light weight/functional tabletops/desks and chairs, learning/study pods).

DSISD should halt all new building/construction and re-evaluate what is truly needed. Growth of the district may not be as much as predicted since many have lost jobs and can no longer afford to move to the district and for the same reason many will be moving out of the district. It is possible that future building/construction will not be needed and if needed, it certainly should be scaled down.

The district should take this moment to pause and reassess its pre-pandemic plans before asking voters to approve more debt. District officials need a firm grasp of current and future enrollment trends, student needs, and what, if any, legislative changes are on the horizon. Each of these issues could dramatically alter the district's earlier assessment and require change.

DNR

We need the fiscal audit that was proposed back in 2020 to be completed. This audit needs to address where our financials are and what is going to be the biggest issues for the district going forward. I hope that we can balance our debt burden, our growth rate and our need to accelerate teacher pay back to where they should be based on local and regional scales.

DNR

Along with needed changes in school finance, this is an issue of mine. DSISD is known state wide for underpaying their teachers and staff, which precluded hiring and retaining the best staff available. Per audit, DSISD put $5 million in fund balance. In a district this size, that would have funded a decent raise for our campus and cafeteria workers. There is plenty of room in the current funds to pay our teachers. I can see it standing out in the budget now. It can and should happen with current funding.

The answer is a combination of all scenarios listed. I would start with the administrators, teachers, and staff to identify their list of needs, large and small to see what might be immediately addressed, what may never be fully resolved because of realistic limitations, and what are items that are achievable but will take a multi-step approach to accomplish. Finally, ensuring emphasis is placed on the work environment to keep teachers and staff in DSISD because they feel connected to the community. Parents and leadership must demonstrate appreciation for the value those working with our c[...]

I would not seek additional tax revenues. I would re-prioritize the current expenditures. Funds could be re-allocated from construction and building and made available for teacher compensation. There are excessive costs incurred in the design and construction of elaborate buildings when a more conservative, economic and functional building would reduce the costs involved in design and construction, which would make funds available for competitive teacher compensation.

If elected, I will push for the district to voluntarily undergo a third-party efficiency audit of its budget and operations. Once we have identified waste, fraud, and abuse in the existing budget structure, then trustees can redirect a portion of the proceeds to increase teacher pay for high-performers. We can increase teacher compensation using existing resources by diverting funds not currently well spent.

DNR

As best as possible, we must prioritize re-allocation of funds. That said, teachers' salaries are absolute priority. Their salaries must be prioritized over other potentially superfluous expenses.

DNR

During my public school career when I handled the finances for Dallas ISD's bond funding, I was known for requiring construction contracts to be fulfilled before payment authorized. In fact, administrators told contractors proposals, "That's never going to fly with Kay." Yes, misuse of bond funds trouble me, as do the debt costs and the debt structure. The Long Range Facilities Plan should be updated with community input and based on our changing world. Funding for upgrading the Administration Building, any interest earned, and any potential project savings should be frozen until we can deter[...]

I have questions about why/how bond funds were used, and I definitely think that priorities should be re-examined and re-prioritized before any additional spending. Similar to the previous answer, without having more specific information about what was supposed to happen versus what actually happened, I have a hard time committing to what I think we should do with the current administration building. I sincerely hope that this won't end up being a hard/expensive lesson learned that costs more to fix because of incomplete planning, however well-intentioned it may have been at the time.

Yes, I find it troubling, and I think the current Long Range Facilities plan should be revisited and revised. Student needs and paying down bond debt should take priority over spending more money on an already over budget project. All contracts for any construction should have Liquidated Damages clause as well as a Time is of the Essence clause. There has been no oversight on this project.

The Bond Advisory Committee’s mission should be expanded to monitor the progress of the 2018 bond and also team up with district staff and the long range planning committee to make recommendations to the Board on all future bond projects. Smarter, more strategic planning will mitigate things like redrawing elementary school boundaries.

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The current administration facilities are severely in disrepair. We may have gotten an extra year due to most people working from home but returning to a full district office will only complicate matters. I am hoping we can find available office space that we can leverage offsite for our admins while we develop a longer term plan. There also could be extra space on each of our campuses for our administrators to work at. As well the issue with a board meeting room can be satisfied with either DSHS or SSMS auditoriums. I feel the best thing we can do is to start to move out of that space an[...]

DNR

There is not enough being done to constrain costs. In order to save costs, the same acceptable design could be used for all future schools, realizing elevation tweaks would be needed, which would eliminate design time and costs. Designing efficient, conservative and functional buildings instead of elaborate structures that do not house enough students and have so much wasted space would decrease construction costs as well as maintenance costs.

DSISD is deep in debt. District taxpayers currently owe $60,000-plus for every student currently enrolled. The Board must better manage its finances. One way to do this is to conduct a third-party efficiency audit and identify ways that we can operate programs and services more effectively. Doing so will free up resources to use now and enable us to set aside those funds for future projects.

DNR

We must begin to restrain spending to what is most critical to infrastructure needs rather than wants and desires, given the debt and rapid increase spending that is unsustainable. In recent years, we have accommodated many wants and desires in building capacity without constraint of budget, spending, and efficiency.

DNR

We need to keep a close eye on our I&S tax rate that is currently set at 0.35% This bucket is for facilities and loan repayment and is starting to move in an upward direction. We need to cap this and ensure we can slowly reduce it. The majority of school districts in the state have a lower I&S Tax rate than us, and when focusing on top tier districts they have I&S tax rates at or below 0.33% and a combined tax rate of 1.32 or lower. We are trending in the wrong direction and need to complete the fiscal audit to understand both operational, facilities, and loan repayment costs.

DNR

One of the major factors to the increase in I & S taxes is the district's use of Capital Appreciation Bonds (bonds that capitalize part of the interest due for a period of years). The years of moving interest to principal ends in 2021 and that all current debt payments increase to cover the additional costs. I am a major opponent of CAB bonds and this is a reason I decided to run for the School Board. Dripping Springs ISD approved a TRE (Tax Rollback Election) for the 2016-2017 school year, which authorized the district to increase the Maintenance & Operations tax rate to $1.17 per hundred dollar value. I asked a former board member if the district had intended to utilize the additional "pennies" for debt payment in the [...]

We can all be more fiscally responsible. I'm a proponent of multiple smaller bond offerings. Smaller increments will naturally require a more disciplined approach to completing identified projects within the constraints of the available funds. Smaller/more specific projects also help to ensure a timeline for completion that will stay within the bounds of anticipated costs/budget. A huge amount with multiple large projects can't all be started at once - the more time that passes, the more likely estimated costs will deviate from the original proposal. Taxpayer buy-in is easier when there is[...]