LEANDER SCHOOL DISTRICT
34,349 $237.7 million Area covers more than 200 square miles of Leander, Cedar Park,Jonestown, Steiner Ranch and other parts of Northwest Austin and Travis County.
Like other districts, Leander has had to have different budget cuts, undergo changes in staff, hold back on raises until this year. What do you think staff morale is like now as a result of those changes?
I think staff morale is incredibly strong. The reason that is, is because those things happened here in Leander ISD within the cultural context of Leander ISD. One of the things I’m most proud of in all that budget stuff that went on is our continued effort to keep folks well informed, to keep them involved in the process so there were no surprises. Whenever that ultimately rolled out, it was terrible. ... While it was awful and sad, there were some remarkable things that came out of it. For example, (in) our exit surveys ... the percentage of employees recommending Leander ISD at that time last year actually increased 16 (percentage) points or so from the year before, even in the middle of all those budget cuts. We went somewhere from 74 percent of staff would recommend Leander ISD to others as a place to work (in 2010) to 94 percent (in 2011).
This is still one of the fast-growth districts, but you have held back on opening a couple of campuses, a middle school campus for one year and an elementary school for two years. Tell me about the decisions behind that.
Whenever I talk to the community about those schools being vacant, I remind them that the mechanisms of opening a school start years before the school actually opens or even before the concrete is ever poured. Whenever we were hot and heavy in the middle of growth, decisions were made to, looking at demographics, place certain schools. ... When the economy did what the economy did, and slowed down significantly, we took a look at demographics. ... One of the things we looked at first was student safety. ... With Stiles Middle School sitting vacant, could Henry Middle School sustain the number of kids? It was (200 students) over capacity, without a doubt. We did a study and realized that yes, with additional resources, additional teachers and whatnot, that Henry Middle School could do that. But then we said, that’s it. ... We did the same thing with Reed Elementary. This will be the second year that it’s not been used as a school, and we’ll continue to monitor and look at the elementary schools around and see if they get to a point where we must open that school, in which case, we will.
Any plans for a tax ratification election or a bond election?
There are no plans for a TRE right now. The board adopted the budget and the tax rate (Aug. 23). We already started earlier (in August) working on next year’s budget. I always say we will keep all options open, but there are no plans to do a TRE. On a bond, the same thing. We’ll be getting the demographer’s report in October and take a look at what the projected growth is. Anecdotally, the sale of resale homes are increasing, so I’ll be curious to see what the demographics report shows. We’ll work with the board and make decisions based on that.