DeSoto ISD, city council meet to discuss state of the district

by Daphne Brown of DeSoto TODAY

Elected and appointed DeSoto leaders met Sept. 15 to update one another on the overlapping issues of education and economic development.

DeSoto Schools Superintendent Lloyd Treadwell, DeSoto school boardmembers and staff hosted a joint meeting of the city council to share budget information and plans for the future. Members of the DeSoto Economic Development Corporation also joined the group, which historically has tried to meet annually, for the first time this year at the behest of former school boardmember and current DEDC chair Curtistene McCowan.

They discussed the tangible issues of test scores and tax rates and briefly touched on matters of city and academic pride.

School Board President Don Gant said it was important for everyone to work together “because we all feed off of each other.”

Treadwell detailed the district's financial and academic outlook following publicity about missteps with math and science scores and a projected 2008-09 budget shortfall.

“Our problem is not as bad as some would have you think,” Treadwell said. “We stubbed our toe in a couple of categories and we did not score well enough in science.”

What the district did do, he said was show improvement in reading, writing and social students.

“We made gains in 150 of 209 sub-categories tested,” he said.

He said the district has a plan of recovery, which has been reviewed by academic specialists, experts and consultants who tell them they are moving in the right direction.

“What we discovered was that the plan wasn't being completely implemented,” Treadwell said.

The across-the-board plan of improvement will include stressing high academic standards for teachers, students, parents and the community by utilizing frequent monitoring, better engaging students in all areas of the learning process and more effectively communicating with parents.

“What can you do as a parent, business owner, community leader?” Treadwell asked. “Believe that learning has to be a focus throughout this entire community.”

He suggested a collaboration of church, sports teams, community organization, local stores and the home must work together to create an atmosphere of high academic achievement.

“There's no reason that all of our children can't be high achievers,” Treadwell said. “In fact, we're telling our second- and third-grade teachers that it's not enough to say to a student ‘if you go to college' but to tell them ‘when they go to college.'”

As for the district's financial situation, Treadwell had praise for the board.

“To use a sports analogy, the board stepped up to the plate and hit a home run when it approved the district's largest-ever salaries, stipends and bonuses increase,” he said, which served to level the playing field for DeSoto in competing with districts for qualified teachers throughout the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

Salary increases contributed to the district's more than $8 million gap, but even considering that, Treadwell said the district faces even tougher decisions with next school year's budget, due in large part to the economy and stagnation in student growth. The board has directed Treadwell and his staff to begin coming up with ways to cut the 2009-10 budget.

“We plan to review the budget every six weeks in an effort to cut next year's budget and control costs,” he said.

Hopefully by next summer, he said, staff will have developed a list of recommended cuts, which unfortunately will include programs and personnel.

“We can turn out more lights and save money but that doesn't get us up the millions of dollars we need,” he said.

Gant said balancing a home budget is different that a district's budget.

“It's so different because we're talking about educating kids,” he said, admitting that the meeting the board passed the deficit budget was the first time in nine years on the board he felt decidedly uncomfortable. “What do you cut? There may come a point when we have to cut extracurricular activities because we're not going to cut subjects like English, math and science. We may have to cut some electives, but there are some of those electives that entice kids to come to school everyday.”

Treadwell referred to this as a transition year because of the grade-level realignment in which the intermediate campuses were closed and fifth grade students were moved to the elementary campuses and sixth grade students were moved to the junior high campuses.

“There were some issues with elementary teachers who had never had fifth-grade students on their campuses, at least not in DeSoto,” he said.

DeSoto's Chief Financial Officer Bobby LaBorde said the district remains in excellent shape despite this being the first year the district has faced a deficit situation.

Stay tuned next week to read what DeSoto City Manager Jim Baugh had to contribute to the meeting.