Taylor ISD

Taylor ISD

Written by Beth Wade Friday, 12 September 2008

New high school would ease overcrowding

The Taylor ISD Board of Trustees will ask residents to pass a $43 million bond package Nov. 4.

The bond money will consist of two parts — $38.5 million for a new high school facility and $4.5 million to renovate and repurpose the current high school.

“The desire is to provide us with more space to spread our children out in,” Superintendent Bruce Scott said. “We have exceeded our current capacity on three of our current five facilities.”

If the bond package is approved, the school district plans to build a 1,200 student high school campus on FM 973 south of Hwy. 79 loop, including classrooms with additional math, computer and science instructional spaces, core areas, two gyms, a track and tennis courts.

The district has owned the 50-acre property for five years. The land is adjacent to the future site of the East Williamson County Higher Education Center. The district purchased an additional 15 acres about one year ago to connect to the EWCHEC property.

“We feel like this is a great opportunity for our students,” Scott said. “We encourage a lot of our students to take college-level courses. This will be within walking distance to EWCHEC. So, while in high school, students will be able to walk across to a college campus and take courses that will count, not only to their high school graduation, but give them college credit.”

After the new campus is built, renovations at the campus on Hwy. 95 will repurpose the building for use by seventh and eighth grades.

“[This keeps us] in a unified system, where all of the students in Taylor ISD who are in kindergarten go to the same building; we don’t go to different buildings. We don’t have to worry about dividing neighborhoods,” Scott said. “That is important to the community. They really want all of our students to go to the same school and not be split. That was what the [facilities] committee was comfortable doing and what they felt like the community wanted.”

If passed, the bond is expected to raise property taxes to $1.527 per $100 valuation. The school district estimates that could increase taxes on a $100,000 home $327 a year.

According to the district, the new high school facility will have a 50- to 60-year life span, and renovations are expected to extend the other campuses’ life spans.

For the past four years, the district has experienced slow to modest growth of approximately 3 percent.

“Our growth has been moderate over the past few years, but we are outgrowing our buildings,” Scott said. “It is time for the district to make some decisions concerning how we are going to address this need.”

Q & A

Dr. Bruce Scott, Taylor ISD Superintendent of Schools

• Hired: Feb. 1, 2005

• Education: Bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi and Ph.D. from Texas A&M University at Corpus Christi and Texas A&M University Kingsville
• Background: Corpus Christi ISD in various positions from fourth grade to high school teacher, middle school and high school assistant principal, high school principal and elementary school director
• Contact: 365-1391 or bscott@taylor.isd.tenet.edu

What are your goals this school year?

We have a variety of goals — obviously improving academic achievement [is one of them], and to improve our programs. One of our primary goals is to offer students more opportunities to better themselves. We are very much looking at trying to increase the number of advanced placement classes we offer, as well as the dual credit opportunities our students have.

What is the school district’s biggest challenge?

I think some of [our] challenges deal with the diversity of our population. One of our fastest growing groups is our limited English proficient students. That is increasing by almost 100 percent a year. The other challenges we have are being able to locate and keep highly qualified teachers. Probably the biggest challenge that we have right now is our budget. Through a quirk in the state budget system we are basically going to be operating on the same revenue base that we have had for the past two years, and we could have the same revenue base, depending on what the legislature does, for two years after next year also.

What is the school district doing to help students with limited English?

We have a bilingual program that we have been improving for the last three years. We hired a bilingual instructional facilitator who is working with our teachers to improve the program so that we cannot only teach [students] in Spanish to improve their English, but teach them in Spanish to learn the content they will be tested on. It is a combination program that we are doing K-12 [grades]. We do something K-12, because we get new students to our schools that have weak English skills in all grade levels.

What would you do with an unlimited budget?

I think the first thing I would do would be to reward our best teachers. We have some great teachers in this district, and they really are not getting compensated what they ought to. Hopefully that would encourage a lot of them to stay with us and become lifelong teachers here in Taylor, instead of staying four or five years and then moving to another school district that pays considerably more than we do. Secondly, I think we need to really upgrade all of our academic programs, especially our programs to the gifted and talented students and those students who are advanced academic learners.

What excites you about your job?

When I hear stories about students being successful. When we are seeing kids be successful and compete in the classroom, against each other and against other schools, we show folks that we are every bit as good as any other school in the region. Seeing our kids — that’s what makes me keep coming back.

What was the most important lesson you learned in school?

I learned several things in school, but I think one of the things I learned was you just have to keep plugging away. You may not be the best at a particular activity or academic pursuit, but if you keep plugging at it, you can be successful. One of the things that people don’t realize is that I was born with two clubbed feet. I had numerous surgeries as a young child, was in braces for a number of years and really didn’t start walking until I was 4 years old, and even then I was walking with braces. So I had to overcome a lot of physical challenges, and doing things that normal kids could do, I couldn’t do until I was 9 or 10 years old — like, jumping was something I had to learn to do. You can accomplish anything that you want to, you just have to stick to it.

Who was your favorite teacher?

I had a social studies teacher in high school, Mrs. Roberts, who was one of my favorite teachers. She really spent a lot of time trying to challenge us. It was not the typical lecture type history class; instead, a lot of work was placed in our laps and we were challenged to do it. She had a wit and a wisdom about her that required us to really think.

Did you always know you wanted to be in education?

I started off in college thinking I was going to go into medicine, but I always liked children and working with kids. I think I went into college thinking medicine was going to be the field I would go into and be a pediatrician or something like that. After a few years it became evident that I would be better off going into education, and I had a lot of fun doing it.

Who inspires you?

Probably the person who inspires me the most is my wife. She is an incredible teacher and very talented with interpersonal relationships. Watching her work, not only with children but adults, too, is pretty amazing. I probably learn more from her than from anybody else.

Are there any school districts that you want Taylor ISD to be like?

I try to take the best from every school district I see. One of the things I continue to tell people in Taylor is that I want us to develop the reputation of being the school of choice in this region — that when people are moving to Central Texas ... they will automatically gravitate to Taylor. I want people to pick us intentionally.

Current facility capacities
	Educational structure	Capacity	Current enrollment**	Low enrollment projections	High enrollment projections
Northside Early Childhood	Early childhood-pre-K	412	392	575	582
Pasemann Elementary	Grades 1-2	600	427	756	799
T.H. Johnson Elementary	Grades 3-5	620	682	1056	1137
Taylor Middle School	Grades 6-8	935	682	882	993
Taylor High School	Grades 9-12	537*	851	917	1041
*The capacity is 750 with use of portable buildings ** Enrollment figures as of June 2007