Recent Changes

Sponsorships
The Booster clubs do a great job of generating sponsors for their various programs and calendars each year. I notice some area schools take advantage of visibility of their athletic facilities through sponsorship signage. PNG comes to mind as a district that has relied heavily on corporate sponsors at their athletic facilities. I know that our scoreboards have sponsors attached to them. Is it possible to take greater advantage of this opportunity? I know many of these facilities draw large crowds to the events. Many businesses may be interested in having their logos visible at the events.

Corporate Partnerships
Here is a link to Joyce Epstein's Framework of Six Types of Involvement in Schools. Type Six centers on community involvement. http://www.cpirc.org/vertical/Sites/%7B95025A21-DD4C-45C2-AE37-D35CA63B7AD9%7D/uploads/%7B1310DD65-F94A-457D-A680-9EE824084458%7D.PDF

The goal of Type 6 is to "Identify and integrate resources and services from the community to strengthen school programs, family practices, and student learning and development." In Vidor, we have a number of business and community leaders directly involved with our schools. They enrich our schools and provide tremendous benefits to our children. We may only be scratching the surface of what is available to us in our community and region.

Saving money
Yes, a $1,000 pay cut would save lots of money. but I think that it needs to be a certain percentage of your pay 1 or 2 percent. A one thousand dollar pay cut means a lot when you only make $15,000 a year. While it does not make quite as much of a difference when you make over fifty thousand or more.

Corporate Partnerships
Here is a link to an article dealing with the rising trend of Corporate partnerships with public schools: http://eric.uoregon.edu/publications/policy_reports/corporate_involvement/index.html

The talk at the national, state, and to some degree the local level in recent years has revolved around school reform. Corporate America has made a strong push to join in the reform movement. At the local level, ExxonMobil is a good example of this type of involvement. Recently, they entered into a partnership with Beaumont ISD. This type of partnership is designed to benefit the schools by increasing student exposure to "real world" technology and training while keeping expenses down for the district. ExxonMobil benefits by having a direct pipeline of training for their future workers and leaders.

Corporate partnerships do not come without some controversy. The article highlights the pros and cons of corporate involvement in our schools.

As long as the integrity of schools and their mission to provide social and academic growth in our children is not compromised, corporate partnerships are worth exploration and consideration.

Length of School Year
Currently the Legislature does not allow for TEA to permit schools to count hours instead of days. A few districts in recent days have approached TEA about shortened work weeks without success. However, this Legislature may change the rules.

Money Saving Ideas - A Team
No one on the VISD staff or Board has proposed cutting any sports or teams. There has been discussion about charging a nominal fee, but no decision has been made.

Grant Writer
Currently Vidor ISD contracts for grant writing services to the tune of about $2500.00 per grant. This amounts to about $10,000 - $15,000 per year.