Patrick Kelly, who is running for LISD School Board, Place 5 has put together this spreadsheet comparing the tax rates and per-student expenditures of LISD versus other area districts. Lewisville ISD seems to be right around the median in both per-student expenditures and tax rates.
Fox 4 News reports today that another local mother is accused of stealing $13,791 from the Timber Creek Elementary PTA.
The PTA president recently noticed that several bills had gone unpaid. When she went to the bank to take a closer look, she realized money was missing.
She got a police escort to the treasurer’s home to collect financial records. After an emergency audit, she and Lewisville Independent School District officials concluded the treasurer stole $13,791.41 over a period of two years.
In September of 2008, LISD's Parkway Elementary's PTA, in Lewisville, was the victim of a $27,500 embezzlement by its treasurer, Jennifer Pope, who was convicted in January of 2009.
According to LISD spokeswoman Karen Permetti, the district does not do PTA audits, since PTAs are separate organizations with their own rules, governed by state and national PTA guidelines. The Lewisville Council of PTA does have a set of guidelines for financial management.
Permetti said the district was informed last Thursday that Timber Creek Elementary PTA was performing an emergency audit due to reporting irregularities. The PTA held an emergency meeting on Saturday to remove the individual in question as a check signer, then turned the case over to the Flower Mound Police Department.
LISD is providing media relations support for the PTA, and Permetti says the district is looking for business partners who can help the school's PTA throughout the remainder of the year.
Today, we received from Lewisville ISD, the presentation given at last Tuesday's joint meeting with the Lewisville City Council. The document is attached in PDF format.
Here are some selected drawings from the presentation:
The biggest news is that the $48 million tear-down and rebuild for a smaller Lewisville High School that will only accomodate grades 11 and 12 was approved by the board as a construction-manager-at-risk project.
School start times next year will change in order to get cost savings on transportation. The Lewisville Leader has more detail on that, but basically what this means is that if you have a child in elementary school, and another in middle school, then they will start 55 minutes apart; middle school will start at 8:45, but elementary school will start at 7:50. Just to mix things up, high school will start at 8:15.
All of the school rezonings that were being considered passed, with the exception of Briarhill. Since Highland Village has 3 board members who listen to citizen complaints, that rezoning is on ice, although they will allow students to transfer out if they request it.
Remember the $700 billion “Bailout Bill” that Congress rushed to pass back in 2008, when the financial sector was snowballing towards hell? Just for perspective, let’s look at a bit of the timeline. The markets first reacted to rumors of a bailout on September 18th, 2008. On Saturday, September 20th, Congress first got the proposed legislation, and Secretary Paulson was on the Sunday talk shows pushing the proposal. By September 25th, lawmakers had reached a tenuous agreement in principle, but the first attempt to pass the bill had failed on September 29th, causing the Dow to plummet 778 points. In that case, the bill hadn’t been widely available to the public to read, and Members of Congress were rushed, as changes were made until the last minute. WhosPlayin did post a draft of the bill on September 29th. On October 1st, H.R. 1424 passed the Senate. We posted the text of that bill.
That bill passed on October 3rd, 2008 by a 263 to 171 vote, and was signed into law by President Bush that very day.
As rushed as that bill was, as crappy of a situation as it was, and for as much as Congress felt their hands tied, it was still at least 14 days from proposal to final vote, and the text was available online with wide discussion in the media.
All three of the incumbents on Lewisville ISD's Board of Trustees who are up for re-election this year are being challenged for their seats. Fred Placke, Tom Kim, and Kathy Duke are all from Highland Village.
Place 5
Filing for the 2010 School Board elections for Lewisville ISD began Monday, and already long-time incumbent Fred Placke has drawn two challengers from Lewisville for his Place 5 seat. Placke, 58, is a real estate agent from Highland Village seeking a 5th term. Frisco Enterprise has more on Placke
Brenda Lynn Latham, 40, of Lewisville filed on Tuesday for Place 5. She lists her occupation as "Risk Infrastructure" and has lived in the district for 40 years and 9 months. Latham was one of the founders of the Lewisville Task Force.
Latham's issues: (See her platform...) - School zoning should preserve neighborhood integrity - Carefully reduce the $18 million budget deficit, but avoid impacting the classroom - Incentivize experienced teachers to stay in the district - Work to get dual-credit (high school/college)classes for college bound students. Lewisville Leader has more on Latham.
Patrick Michael Kelly, 41, of Castle Hills (Lewisville E.T.J.) filed Wednesday for Place 5. He lists his occupation as "Chief Information Officer" and has lived in the district for 11 years, 4 months. Kelly is one of the founders of the RoundTable Project in Castle Hills - a group that has pushed for accountability in the governing districts there. He will be rolling out a website by the end of this week.
Kelly's issues: (See Kelly's Facebook site...) - Stopping certain language changes in social studies textbooks - Transparency and accountability - Keeping tax increases to a minimum. - Reducing bureaucracy to increase efficiency
School Board elections are won by simple plurality, meaning that whoever gets the most votes wins the seat - even if there is no majority. This means that multiple filings tend to favor the incumbent.
Place 4
Trustee Kathy Duke, 42, of Highland Village (left) has filed for re-election to Place 4. Duke is an insurance broker seeking a 3rd term on the board. Duke has lived in the area her whole life, and attended K-12 in LISD. She also serves on the Flower Mound Presbyterian Hospital Governing Board
Duke's Issues: - Finance for Education which has caused our deficit, - Hiring of a Superintendent, - Dealing with growth and changes within the district.
"These are only a few issues. There are many items that make our district outstanding and I want to make sure that all continues. We are very blessed to have the best teachers, staff and Administrators in the State!"
Collinsworth's Issues: - Hiring a new superintendent - should look inside and outside the district - Would look at allowing the Frisco portion of LISD to move to Frisco ISD - Would like to see Lewisville residents get more involved in the district, but not certain single-member districts are the way. - Open information and transparency, including videotaping board meetings. - Wants to be able to give back to the community.
Julie Linnea Foughty, 35, of Frisco filed today for Place 4. Foughty has lived in the district 4 years and 3 months, and is a former teacher who left full-time employment to take care of a special needs child. She holds a masters degree in library and information sciences from University of North Texas, as well as her bachelors in elementary education.
Foughty's Campaign Website has a lot of detail, but here are some of her issues: - Striving for Excellence in Education, so that LISD can achieve exemplary status - Improve communication between the district and the community, possibly including the use of focus groups for things like rezoning. - Being financially prudent, trying not to raise taxes in the coming year until all other options are exhausted - Searching for a new Superintendent who fills gaps in LISD's capabilities and strengths, again possibly using citizen input. - Increasing focus on health and fitness among our students.
Trustee Tommy Kim, 41, of Highland Village has filed for re-election. Kim, who lists his occupation as "Managing Director" is seeking his 5th 3-year term.
Kim will be challenged by Jeffrey Allen Knapp of Lewisville who filed for Place 3 on February 17th. Knapp, 49, is a Certified Public Accountant who has resided in the district for 15 years, 6 months. Knapp has served with several community organizations such as YMCA, FMYSA, LBA, Upward Basketball, LHS Farmerettes Boosters, and LHS Baseball Boosters.
Knapp's Issues: - Getting the community to get involved and take ownership of their schools - Solving the district's budget deficit - Transparency in the decision-making process of the Board.
Michael Edward (Mike) McDaniel, 57, of Highland Village is also running for Place 3. McDaniel served as an LISD trustee from 1998 to 2004. McDaniel runs a self-storage business, and has lived in the district for 18 years. He serves as a deacon of his church, and is on the board of directors for Denton County Child Protective Services.
McDaniel's Issues: - Performing an exhausitve outside search for a new superintendent when Dr. Roy retires - Cutting back on extravagant spending, such as $295 per square foot athletic field houses. - Putting building projects on hold until the economy recovers.
Tuesday night, the Lewisville ISD Board of Trustees held a rare joint meeting with the Lewisville City Council to discuss major renovations and replacement of Lewisville High School.
The Lewisville Independent School District's Board of Trustees will be conducting a joint workshop meeting with Lewisville City Council
Tuesday, March 2, 2010 5:30 PM Bolin Administrative Center, 1565 W. Main Street, Lewisville, Texas
1. DINNER - 5:30pm in Room D 2. WORKSHOP - 6:30pm in Board Room A. Discussion of Proposed Renovations to Lewisville High School 3. ADJOURNMENT
LISD Facilities staff are expected to present a new plan to demolish and reconstruct most of Lewisville High School, instead of the previously approved plan to renovate the building by removing asbestos and installing new HVAC and fire sprinklers.
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