AISD Notebook

It's the seventh week of the school year, and the complaints keep coming about AISD's new surplus system. Last April, the district implemented a method of "surplusing" teachers on campuses that supposedly don't have high enough enrollments to support them. Apparently, it's not working well for some teachers, and consequently, for many students.

Every surplused teacher who still wanted a job with AISD was promised one, but problems remain. Teachers are being shifted around from campus to campus, and students' schedules are changing right in the middle of the semester, according to Lana Bongiolatti, president of the Austin Association of Teachers. She told the AISD Board of Trustees at their regular meeting on Monday that an English teacher at Anderson High School has 199 students for which she is responsible (the target is 155). That means she'd need about 16.5 hours to spend five minutes grading each student's writing assignment (and that's if she worked non-stop, at that). Bongiolatti reminded the board that the overloaded instructors teach core academic courses - and academics is what the all-important TAAS (Texas Assessment of Academic Skills) covers. "We save the district money by downsizing the staff," Bongiolatti told the Chronicle. "But students and their education have paid the price."

Incredibly, getting stingy with the staff has also meant large class sizes in pre-kindergarten classes. Pre-K is only for economically disadvantaged children, and it's one of AISD's programs that really works, said Bongiolatti. But it's only good if the student-to-teacher ratio is about 15:1 - 18:1 at the very most. Pre-K classes are now at 22:1. That's 22 four-year-olds in one room with one teacher. Yikes.

When these same kinds of problems were raised at the last regular board meeting, Oscar Perry, deputy superintendent for instructional services/school operations, suggested that the real culprit in all of this is AISD's liberal student transfer policy, which caused some campuses to be over projected enrollment, while others were under-enrolled. Perry hinted broadly that adjustments in that policy, not the surplus policy, might be needed.

The board was updated on AISD's efforts to encourage bidding and contracting by minority and women-owned businesses (MWBs). A speaker at citizens' communications, Clarence William, had told the board that unnamed AISD staffers told him the district just likes to do business with certain contractors; therefore, he was shut out of the chance to bid on a painting job. Superintendent Jim Fox admitted he had heard the same thing, and announced that AISD is going to have to change that attitude. Managers of areas over which AISD has direct control, he said, must look toward a target of 10% MWB participation for FY 1995-96; 15% in FY 1996-97; and 20% in FY 1997-98.

Board action included: Approval to develop a science achievement program for students whose native language is Spanish; the appointment of Velma Rochelle Wilson, an experienced, African-American educator, as principal of the perennially low-performing Jordan Elementary School; changing the end of Fox's five-year employment contract from January 31, 2000 to August 1, 2000 (putting it in line with other administrators' contracts), giving him a 1% raise on his $135,000 annual salary, as well as 1% on top of his $1000 monthly expense allowance.