EDUCATION BRIEFS
Comal & Judson ISDs
2023 EDUCATION EDITION
Comal ISD aims to have school resource o cers on every campus next school year BY SIERRA MARTIN
Shatonya King steps down from Judson ISD board of trustees
Judson ISD will meet Aug. 17 at 6 p.m. 8205 Palisades Drive, Live Oak 210-945-5100 • www.judsonisd.org Comal ISD will meet Aug. 17 at 6 p.m. 1404 N. I-35, New Braunfels 830-221-2000 • www.comalisd.org MEETINGS WE COVER HIGHLIGHTS JUDSON ISD For the 2023- 24 school year, the district will provide all students enrolled in an elementary campus with school supplies for free. According to the district website, the supplies are free due to federal funding available for the school year. Children attending the campuses will need to arrive with a backpack to carry the materials, and students will receive supplies on the rst day of school. COMAL ISD According to district o cials, more than a dozen high school students from across CISD quali ed for the 2023 UIL Academic State Meet in various contests, including computer science, debate, number sense, literary criticism, poetry, ready writing, science and spelling.
DEFINING THE BILL Gov. Greg Abbott signed House Bill 3 into law June 14, which will be e ective Sept. 1. The bill gives the state more oversight of districts’ safety and security measures. Comal ISD o cials said they will work on meeting the requirements by the end of the 2023-24 school year.
DISTRICT EXPANSION An elementary school will be built in Judson ISD.
OAKMONT BEND
New elementary school
BY JARRETT WHITENER
our schools regardless of whether the Legislature mandated it or not,” Garner said. District o cials said they have been working with local law enforcement partners, including the Comal County Sheri ’s O ce, Guadalupe County Sheri ’s O ce, Bexar County Sheri ’s O ce and Bulverde Police Department, since April to secure properly trained and licensed law enforcement personnel to provide security at each elementary school. District o cials said they anticipate having a full- time law enforcement presence at every elementary school by the end of the upcoming school year. “The biggest challenge to accomplishing our goal of having an SRO at every elementary school is securing properly trained and quali ed individuals,” said Mario De La Rosa, Comal ISD executive director of safety and security. “Our law enforcement partners are aggressively recruiting, hiring and training reserve deputies to ll these crucial roles. In the meantime, we will be rotating the SROs we do have at the elementary campuses until we secured enough to have one at each school every day.”
give back to the community that I grew up in as
COMAL ISD O cials with Comal ISD announced they will be hiring additional school resource o cers, or SROs, for the 2023-24 school year with the intention of having an armed law enforce- ment presence at each campus, including all 20 of its elementary schools. District o cials said during their meeting that the commitment to having an SRO on each campus was made by the Comal ISD board of trustees after their meeting April 27. “Throughout the previous year, we heard from parents and sta about their desire to have armed personnel dedicated to each of our elementary campuses,” Comal ISD Board President Russ Garner said. In May, the Texas Legislature passed a bill that mandates all school districts to have armed guards at every campus. District o cials said the board had already decided to assign an SRO to each campus prior to the bill’s passage. “While we applaud the Legislature for their work on school safety, as a board we were committed to this concept of having armed personnel in all
JUDSON ISD During the July 20 board of trustees meeting, District 2 Representative Shatonya King announced her resignation. King was rst appointed to the board following the resignation of the previous representative in 2021. Following her appointment, King won the 2021 election to serve an additional four-year term that was set to expire in 2025. During the meeting, King said the reason for her resignation was due to her moving away from the district. “I am grateful to have had the opportunity to serve this community as a school board member,” King said. “It is some- thing that I never thought I would do. I wanted to serve as a board member because I wanted to
RETAMA PKWY.
an educator, and I wanted
WHAT'S IN THE BILL?
N
to advocate for equity, opportu- nity, protection of children and most of all integrity in education.”
SOURCE: JUDSON ISD COMMUNITY IMPACT
1 At least one armed o cer must be on each public school campus during school hours. 2 School district employees who regularly interact with students must have mental health training. 3 Districts must create procedures for students to report concerning behavior by other students. 4 A child’s discipline record and threat assessments will be required to transfer with them between schools. 5 Parents will be noti ed via text or email about violent activity investigations on their child’s campus. 6 Districts failing to meet safety infrastructure standards must reallocate bond funds to x the issues.
Design for new Judson ISD school approved
Shatonya King
BY JARRETT WHITENER
Since King was acting vice presi- dent, a vote was taken to appoint Trustee Deborah Eaton as the new vice president and Laura Stanford as the new secretary. As of the July 20 meeting, a replacement to ll the vacant position has not been determined, and trustees will be reviewing applications to appoint a new member to nish out the remain- der of King’s term.
JUDSON ISD Schematics were approved for a new elementary school to be located in Selma. Elementary School No. 21 will cost $62 million in construction and furnishings, and was part of the $349 million bond package approved by voters in 2022. According to designers at Alamo Architects, the school is planned to house around 800 students.
SOURCES: COMAL ISD, TEXAS LEGISLATURE COMMUNITY IMPACT
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