The Goodrich ISD School Board met to discuss testing, facilities, and finances at their regular meeting for April Thursday in the administration building. They also recognized several students for their success in UIL and art competitions.
STAAR testing is underway at Goodrich ISD. English is complete, while U.S. history and social studies are in progress this week. Science and biology will take place next week.
Principal Brenda Langley called the following tests “the big week,” which is math.
She said the results should begin to appear May 22-29, and final accountability results will not be released until the end of June. In August, the district should learn of its new letter grade.
Tax collection up to this point is 88.25% complete. Finance manager Sarah Bacica said the district is generally at 96% in July, so progress is going well.
Preliminary property values were released this week at around $200 million. As a comparison to last year, the values were around $208 million.
“We went down $8 million on the preliminary property value,” Bacica said. “That’s to be expected a little bit, because of the new homestead exemption.”
Bacica said upon receiving certified values in July, they were at $219 million. “So they went up, they’re going to go up, but probably not hit what they were last year, not with those new homestead exemptions. That’s not until July.”
Goodrich superintendent Daniel Barton showed a sample plan for the new athletic facilities that included locker rooms, a weight room, coaching offices, storage, restrooms with outside access and a concession stand in a structure near the track that would be resurfaced.
“If you all recall from last month, we weren’t overly thrilled with our lowest bid,” Barton said. “We thought we could do better from a financial standpoint and better service our kiddos. We went back to the drawing board. The architect, along with the general contractor with lowest bid, said that they believe they could improve that by a large amount by just demolishing the existing field house. It has some structural issues that are major, but most of them were structural, and then plumbing.
“Ultimately, on a square footage base, it is easier to demolish it and build one new facility. We believe that we’ll get back down into a range, somewhere between the $1.5 million to $2 million range. That is something I told them where we needed to be. That would also include the track, obviously. So, I think we’re well within that at this point.
“We think we’re getting closer. We’re still pressing and still hoping to get started on this when we get to the month of June. That’s the hope. And, that’s their hope, so we don’t have to go out for bid. We already went out for bid. We selected Langston Construction; they were the low bid.”
Barton said lighting upgrades at the track are a possibility, depending on the final number that returns. He mentioned the chance that it would go back out for bid, calling previous numbers “pretty high.”
The superintendent is also attempting to receive bids to resurface and stripe the parking lots.
In business, the board accepted the summer meeting schedule of June 18 and July 30.
