HOUSTON – Spring Branch ISD announced the second phase of budget cut proposals as they face a shortfall of $35 million.
The district announced Monday they’re looking at the ‘Gifted & Talented Programming’ and it’s ‘Choice Programming.’
The significant difference the district is proposing for the ‘Gifted & Talented’ is with the Spring Branch Program for Improving Reasoning and Accelerating Learning or SPIRAL program.
The district could end a portion of the program where students, at various schools, once a week travel to Bendwood Elementary School for “instructional activities that are designed to meet the needs of the GT student,” according to a presentation.
Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Blaine believes they could save $762,774 by no longer sending students to Bendwood once a week.
“Our goal is not to cut that program, our goal is to just redesign it, which is what we’ve done but, in the redesign, we’re going to have to service those kids not at the central location [Bendwood] but at their home campus,” Blaine said. “So, the kids will still get all the special projects. Instead of them going to the campus the teachers will go to the school and offer the services. We’ll offer the program so teachers will rotate to different schools.”
Blaine said she recently met with a group of parents, with kids in the program, trying to figure out the best way to make the ‘redesign’ work.
“One of the reasons we’re redesigning it instead of cutting it all together is because we do value the program and we do hope to at some point either bring it back or be able to bring it back in a bigger and better way,” she said.
The district also recommends expanding enrollment at Spring Branch Academic Institute which “serves highly gifted students with a qualifying IQ score of 145+ in a ‘school within a school.’”
Another item the board of trustee will discuss is the district’s Choice Program.
There are four programs the district offers: two-way dual language, dual language, campus charter, and S.K.Y. Partnership. S.K.Y. Partnership is the program the district processes dissolving.
S.K.Y. Partnership was established in 2012 with KIPP and YES Prep charter schools. Blaine said the children are Spring Branch ISD students who get their core academic classes at KIPP and YES Prep with those teachers. However, they get their elective courses by SBISD teachers.
“It’s been great. It’s a wonderful program for kids, certainly not something we’d be discussing if we were not in this situation with the budget,” Blaine said. “But it’s a very expensive program. The totality of the program, it’s not even the totality, right now it’s costing us right about $11.5 million to offer that program for 1,100 kids. That doesn’t count for all the services that we actually provide that we don’t charge.”
KPRC 2′s Rilwan Balogun asked Blaine if she worries about parents pulling their students out of the district.
“I think it’s possible we could lose some of our kids that are in our SKY partnership program,” Blaine said. “It’s a unique program and there are going to be some parents who want it in the manner in which it is currently designed. We certainly understand that. That’s one of the reasons we’re having these conversations around school closures, reconfiguring programs – we’re having those conversations in the fall and not in the spring. Because I felt strongly as a parent myself, I would want to know if a program that my child was deeply involved in was going to be altered, reconfigured, or cut all together because I would want an option as a parent to be able to do something different.”
The board of trustees will vote December 11 on Phase 2 of the budget proposals and whether to close Panda Path School for Early Learning and Treasure Forest Elementary School.
