Published: July 09, 2008 07:55 am            

Board members build toward facilities improvements

By Richard Nelson

editor@jacksonvilleprogress.com

The state requires school board members to go through “team-building” exercises each year, and Jacksonville trustees did their calisthenics Monday night at the JISD Administration Building.

Jacksonville Independent School District trustees invited Dr. Don Hooper to lead the exercises, since Hooper has worked with the board in the past and is accredited by the Texas Association of School Boards.

Hooper used his knowledge of the district’s facilities needs to put the team through its paces.

The only spectator in the audience, other than the media and front-office personnel was impassioned district resident Julian Haddad.

Hooper took the board members through a series of 10 essentials of teamwork, which included common goals, leadership, interaction and involvement of all members, maintenance of individual self esteem, open communication, power within the team to make decisions, attention to the board processes, mutual trust, respect for differences and constructive conflict resolution.

Once through the basics, Hooper used the board’s mission statement to segue into its exercise, a discussion of the districts facilities needs. The final part of the mission mentions providing “facilities that provide a positive, learning experience.”

Hooper co-authored in December 2004 a 10-year master facilities plan for the district that included replacing all three elementary schools and adding a science wing to the high school by the year 2012. The first phase in the plan was to replace Joe Wright Elementary School; bond proposals for that phase failed in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

So, Hooper had the board discuss various ways of living up to the facilities part of its mission statement, offering suggestions and fielding questions from the board.

Among the things discussed were a timeline for sending another bond proposal to the voters; alternatives to building new schools; citizen opposition to raised taxes; and creating a steering committee to find out what the community believes is the best route to take to address the problem of aging facilities.

The board came to no conclusions. However, that was not the intent of the exercise. It was to work on strengthening the “team,” according to Texas Education Agency rules.

“The purpose of the team building session is to enhance the effectiveness of the board-superintendent team and to assess the continuing education needs of the board-superintendent team,” according to the TEA Web site.

Hooper, who spent 25 years of his career as a superintendent, said during the meeting it was obvious the board worked well together, better than many he’s had experience with. As a superintendent, Hooper had bonds passed at all but one stop.

While no definite plans were put on the drawing board, it was evident the board and its consultant still see the need for new facilities within the district, considering three of the schools are 50 to 70 years old.

However, as Superintendent Stuart Bird said in an interview for a previous story, “I don’t want to get too far off into this facilities deal. We’re just going to use facilities as a point of discussion. I honestly do not expect any sort of a bond issue of any kind between now and the end of next school year.”

        

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