pineda

Why would Klein Oak need additions?

The only reason Klein Oak would need additions is because instead of building two new high schools, now the plan is to build only one new high school and do a re-build for Klein High, so the bond committee has proposed adding a "wing" onto Klein Oak to handle the incoming population. Brilliant? Yeah, not so much...

Really awful timing for all this to be happening at Texas Tech. High school seniors across the country are making their final plans on where they'll be attending college in the fall, and this will severely hurt Tech's recruiting of these students.

Tiny Texas Houses

story in the Houston Chronicle

Out here in Spring, there are still some of these little houses dotting the landscape, mainly on the farmlands that still belong to the families of the original German settlers with names like Hildebrandt, Fuchs, Theiss and Klein. The Klein ISD has a collection of them also at Doerre Intemediate and on Wunderlich Farms. I love that Brad Kittel is re-creating that type of home with recycled and reclaimed materials and that each one is unique.

KLEIN ISD INVITATION TO PARENTS

(Adults only please)

Parents of Klein ISD students are invited to attend a community dinner hosted by Superintendent Jim Cain.

A pizza and salad dinner will be provided free to parents beginning at 6:30 p.m.

A district informational update and a question and answer session will follow.

Please call to reserve your seat!

What: Community Dinner

When: March 6, 2008, 6:30

As I stated before, to come back to the taxpayers less than 4 years later to ask for more money when the property assessments over the last 2 years has increased considerably is disgusting.

I am having a difficult time swallowing tearing down parts of Klein High. It would seem to me that instead of tearing down why not maintain? Roofing, paint, carpeting and tile would be alot less expensive than tearing down and rebuilding. The high school that I attended is now almost 60 years old and was renovated and not torn down, the same can be said for the schools that my parents attended 40 years ago and grandparents attended over 70 years ago.

Can we assume that every few years Klein is going to come to us and ask for more money? Between escalating tax assessments and bonds homeowners will be feeling the pinch most definitely.

We all have to live within our budget and Klein needs to do the same.

Good post. I've heard others in the area say that they do not care to spend upwards of $150 million to re-build Klein High at this time, but they are entertaining the idea of a "Berry Center" type stadium to be built with bond money.

BTW, I drove out to Portofino Center and checked out the new Woodlands area stadium about a month ago. The huge building being built next door to the football stadium is not a basketball stadium, but a natatorium instead. The Woodlands area has a very big following when it comes to swimming, I would imagine.

But, yeah, if the bond committee doesn't pull the Klein High re-build out of the proposal, I will vote no to the whole thing.

story from the Houston Chronicle

from the article:

"When I talk to people about the (proposed) bond issue they cringe at first, but then I explain the details," said Marcia Baulch, a Klein ISD parent and member of the district's 2008 bond steering committee, which included parents, residents, business owners, teachers, administrators and staff. "It is how you present it to the public. If this doesn't happen property values will be affected, and for most people their largest investment is their home. I think we can sell $638 million to the community if they truly understand what could happen if the district delayed building schools and other projects until it was too late."

Several steering committee members said the Klein High School replacement project would probably provoke the most criticism and opposition. The proposed $130 million project calls for the demolition and reconstruction of several of the school's older buildings, some dating from the early 1960s, and the relocation of the entire Klein High student body to the district's proposed fifth high school on Spring Cypress Road during the two-year construction process.

The school district will hold four community forums, one at each high school in April, if the board calls a May election.

The Klein Bond Political Action Committee will hold its first meeting Feb. 6 at 6:30 p.m. at First Service Credit Union, 9621 Sam Houston Parkway North.

from pineda:

If the bond steering committee does not remove the Klein High School replacement project from the list for the bond election, I won't be voting for the bond, period, no matter how much Marcia thinks she can "sell" this to me.

Bach-

Everything I've seen says "late February". If you get a more definite date, can you post it here please? Thanks!

story from the Chronicle about the most recent bond committee meeting

Klein ISD opens Network Operations Center, paid for from the last bond election

Channel 13 just interviewed David Adickes on the 6 p.m. newscast. He called the statues Mount Rush Hour. They looked pretty cool, and you could see them from a good distance away.

What did you mean by "good thing the people are taking over soon"?

I would just hate to see areas that really need the help and the growth issues addressed rejected becuase this bond issue gets shot down over the new KHS plan. I doubt Klein will do this.

Yes, you're probably right about that, but I don't plan to vote FOR the bond package in its' current state.

This is a close-up of the gym floor in the brand-new school, Krimmel Intermediate. It looks and feels like painted concrete. In the bond package, there is a provision to replace the gym floors in the intermediate schools. I hope that Klein ISD is not planning to replace our rubber-coated gym floor at Hildebrandt with this stuff. Our kids came back from a game there and they all complained of shin splints and they were just exhausted, after just one game on that floor. We've played in all-day tournaments at some of the older intermediate schools in the district and not had these types of problems.

I believe that a large group on that committe think this is a good idea, however that large group is primarily made up of KHS parents. I don't think this will be well recieved outside the KHS zone. Maybe they should pull that section out of the bond package since it is the most controversial and have the KHS issues voted on independently. Just a thought.

I like this idea!

The bond committee was supposed to have another meeting last night. Anybody hear anything about it? I'm wondering if Whitehead's wish to move the Klein High students to the new school is still the plan that the bond committee is going forward with, or whether anyone on the bond committee has come up with an alternate plan.

Klein Memorial Fightin' Meerkats

Couldn't be any worse than the Doerre Warriors.

I heard an interesting story last week about the bond election.

Apparently, the Klein ISD hired the Reuel Group to conduct a phone survey to gauge public interest in the bond election. The company conducted about 350 10-minute interviews the week before Thanksgiving over a three-day period. They specifically targetted older voters who have lived in the Klein ISD zone for at least eight years and have no children or grandchildren currently enrolled in any Klein schools. These older voters were apparently told that senior taxes are frozen and that if the taxes go down, they will benefit from the lower taxes and never pay more. However, property value is not frozen and if property is revalued, taxes will increases.

Even knowing this, the level of support for the bond election, even from this select group of targetted individuals was only about 50%. When these people were polled and asked to rank their perception of issues of importance, they ranked the issues in this order: parental involvement was the most important issue affecting Klein ISD, then came reduced taxes, planning for the future, campus safety, building public confidence, discipline/drugs, overcrowding and least important issue to them: passing a bond election. I thought it was curious that people who have no children or grandchildren enrolled in the district said that parental involvement was their #1 issue they were concerned about. Still scratching my head over that one.

I wonder why other issues were not included like; properly preparing children for like after high school, whether that be college or career with better counselor programs at the middle school and high school levels, the dropout levels at our high schools; the falling graduation rates, the amount of money spent on sports programs vs. the amount of money spent on art, music, science labs, raising teacher pay to ensure that we get the best people available to teach our children in the very expensive schools we're building for them, the number of children per classroom, whether or not what we're teaching them in Klein schools is actually preparing them enough to compete with others not just across the United States but globally, etc.

I don't know what other school districts are like. My kids have always gone to Klein schools, but there has always been a perceived divide in this district between what Klein High gets and what the other schools in this district get/have, and the perception stems from the belief that the school board has always had more people on it whose children attended Klein High than other schools. Whether it's true or not, that is a perception in this district. This new plan to raze Klein High instead of just renovating a 45 year old school only adds to that negative perception that Klein High gets more attention. The original plan was to build two more high schools and a new stadium. Now, the plan is build a new high school, move Klein High students into it, and just add a "wing" onto already overcrowded Klein Oak and NOT build high school #6 until maybe after the next bond election? And they wonder why this bond election is going to be tough to pass???

TEP=Therapeutic Education Program

Special Ed

Thanks for that, any idea what DAEP stands for?

edit: found this link TEP/DAEP

I wonder if this additional money being spent for TEP/DAEP includes the "jail" being discussed for Klein ISD?