Burleson ISD Superintendent Richard Crummel announced at Monday night’s board of trustees meeting that the board will hold a Dec. 20 meeting to interview search firms and make a selection to move forward with the new superintendent selection process.
Crummel said he has invited four search firms to a Dec. 20 meeting to make presentations and two had responded as of Monday night. At the meeting, each firm will be able to make a presentation and have a 30-minute question and answer session. The board will then select a search firm to help find a new superintendent after Crummel retires at the end of the 2012-13 school year.
Crummel called the search firms the “Big Four” and said they’re familiar with the north Texas area. The meeting will be open to the public so the community has an opportunity for input.
“The search firm will have a process to show how they will involve the community, whether it’s surveys or public meetings,” Crummel said.
Once a search firm is selected, the board will then begin advertising the position and hopes to have a new superintendent hired by the end of the spring semester.
Trustees recognized the district’s Reading Bee winners from each elementary school, including the district-wide winner Walker Crane from Brock Elementary School. The BISD Reading Bee is a competition where second-graders from across the district read three passages in front of judges and are graded on accuracy, fluency and comprehension. One second-grader was selected to represent their elementary school at the district competition, and Crane won the championship out of the 10 readers. Crane represented BISD at the North Texas Reading Bee Championship on Nov. 17 at Texas Christian University.
James Fitts, a certified public accountant with Weaver, L.L.P., in Fort Worth, briefed the board and meeting attendees on the district’s clean audit.
“We plan to issue an unqualified opinion on the financial statements, which is the highest form of assurance any auditor can give on financial statements,” Fitts said. “For reports on federal funding ... the report on internal control over financial reporting, we did not identify any material weaknesses. If we had noted a significant issue, that would have been noted here. For compliance and other matters, again we didn’t note anything in our audit that required to be noted here ... again, good news.”
Rita Denton, the district’s director of child nutrition and food services, briefed the board on the Hughes Middle School cafeteria renovations that took place in November.
The cafeteria’s serving line was remodeled over the Thanksgiving break and students returned to six lines with six registers, food displayed in attractive fashion and more modern equipment, Denton said.
Trustees approved its monthly budget amendments, which consisted of one addition of $12,700 for student drug testing.
Director of Assessment and Advanced Academics Brenda Smith discussed dual credit classes for next year with the board. BISD will offer sociology and Texas government during zero and ninth hour at Burleson and Centennial high schools in the spring 2013 semester. In the 2013-14 school year, psychology, sociology, English 4 (which receives credit for 1301 and 1302 in college), economics, government and Texas government are scheduled to be available for students.
The district must actively recruit qualified people to teach these subjects so the district doesn’t have to rely on a university professor, Crummel said.
“I couldn’t guarantee a student would have a dual enrollment teacher from our staff,” he said.
Trustees also discussed considering free admission for student athletes into games, but limiting the sport they can attend for free as the sport they play. For example, a basketball player could not get into a softball game for free — only a basketball game. The board also discussed placing new flooring in the several facilities, such as the Hughes Middle School gym, the BHS weight room and the Norwood and Taylor elementary school gyms and prices of different flooring projects, ranging from $19,000 to $50,000.
The board’s special session meeting with the search firms begins at 6 p.m. Dec. 20 in the boardroom, 1160 S.W. Wilshire Blvd.
