October 2024

At the October meeting, the Angleton ISD Board of Trustees recognized several students for academic success, including top-ranking Angleton High School seniors Cayden Dorsett and Quade Weber for being named as Commended Students in the 2025 National Merit Scholarship Program. They also recognized 15 more high school students for receiving academic honors from the national College Board Recognition Program.

Additionally, the board recognized Central Elementary teacher Norma Tanner-Tinnin for being selected as the 2024 AISD Latin Festival Hispanic Hero Teacher by the Brazoria County Hispanic Chamber of Commerce as well as Northside Elementary for recently earning the distinction of Model PLC School from Solution Tree.

After the recognitions, the board approved key action items for Heartland Elementary School and Heritage Junior High School, set to open fall of 2025. This included the purchase and installation of IP phone equipment and network equipment from MGT Impact Solutions, LLC for a total amount of $118,464.52.

“This approval ensures that the new campuses will be fully equipped with the necessary technology infrastructure to support both student learning and administrative functions,” AISD Assistant Superintendent of Student Services Roberto Muñoz said.

The board also approved updated District and Campus Improvement Plans, which outline specific goals and strategies to enhance student achievement and school performance in the upcoming academic year.

“While these plans are federally mandated each year, we look at this as a great opportunity for campuses and the district to review our practices and look for ways to improve,” AISD Assistant Superintendent of Leadership and Talent Development Dr. Alicia Press said.

Press says the planning process showed that AISD excels with consistently high achievement ratings, state and national recognitions, district growth and development, and innovation and progress with initiatives like the Teacher Incentive Allotment, CTE, College, Career and Military Readiness, and dual credit opportunities.

“We are clearly doing some great things and have many things to celebrate, but we also have some challenges we need to address,” she said. “In the plans, you will see areas where we need to continue to work to close learning gaps. For example, we need to look at more professional development opportunities in early childhood reading and increase our pool of highly qualified teachers. We also have challenges with insufficient funding, which is something affecting most school districts in Texas, and we need to specifically look at funding for outdated technology.”

In addition, the board approved the following business items: 

• New hires

• Furniture vendors

• Micro-purchasing limit for federal funds

• ApplyTexas MOU

• 2024 tax roll adoption

• Agreement Amendment No. 1 with Cascade Solar Energy LLC (1766)

AISD Superintendent Phil Edwards gave a Facility Upgrade Funding report that was a continuation of the long-range facility planning process that was presented at the previous board meeting in September. As part of the process, Edwards reviewed the findings of the previous report and presented the next steps of the process.

“We have looked to identify project goals of the process, but we have not prioritized these goals because we are working with a facility planning steering committee of parents, community members and staff to work through the next steps and set facility priorities,” he said. “Now, we are looking at possible funding for all the projects, which could include a possible future bond election.”

“We cannot fund these projects with money we currently have, so we have to consider two options: selling remaining 2022 bonds with an early payoff condition of $5 million and then looking at a possible new bond,” he said.

Lewis Wilks with U.S. Capital Advisors added to the report, presenting options for selling bonds from the 2022 Bond project. Selling bonds, which Wilks says would be set at the highest level of AAA, is how school districts raise capital.

“We’re not asking the board to do anything right now or fund anything right now,” Edwards said. “There are still several steps to take place before we do anything. This is just informational for the board.”

Edwards added that other things need to be considered before any final plans are decided about facilities, and he plans to develop a more comprehensive plan that will include these considerations.

“We need to look at the expected lifespan of buildings and expected enrollment growth as well as the impact of inflation on identified projects if we wait to do the projects,” he said. “We also need to look at a description of AISD debt, AISD net financial position, and the AISD FIRST rating as it applies to debt. Once we do that, then we can make more informed decisions about moving forward if the board so chooses.”

Edwards says that the district has created a 15-member facility steering committee that will meet to review the facility plan, help prioritize the projects, and give input on the process. After the steering committee meets and if the decision is to move forward with a new bond, then the district would create a larger Bond Citizen Advisory Committee (CAC) to look at any possible bond issues, including specific projects and the amount called, and then the CAC would make a bond recommendation to the board.

In addition to the Facility Upgrade Funding report, the district also presented the following reports to the board at the October meeting:

• Quarterly Investment Report

• SHAC Report

• GT Report

• Curriculum Audit Report

• Staffing Report

• Current Bond Construction Update Report