Bay City Tribune

Bay City Independent School District trustees took four hours to wade through issues facing the district during their regular monthly meeting Monday night, July 20.

Trustees discussed the impact of Gulf Winds Residential Treatment Center with Sam Helmintoller, a Gulf Winds representative.

Trustees also approved an across-the-board raise for district employees and they approved the elimination of semester exams and exemptions at Bay City High School.

In an effort to get a better understanding of how the opening of Gulf Winds will affect Bay City ISD, trustees wanted to hear Helmintoller explain how the treatment center would differ from past drug rehabilitation centers.

"This is a residential treatment facility, it's not a drug rehab facility," said Helmintoller.

"These kids will have behavior and emotional problems and drugs are underlying in all of those."

He said the kids would be referred to the non-profit facility by state Child Protective Services, Catholic Charities and other placement agencies.

"Kids that have been adopted out but don't do well in adoption settings will come back to us," he said.

He said they haven't received referrals yet. Helmintoller told the trustees that the facility would only house and treat 24 children at a time.

The clients would be boys only between the ages of 10 and 18.

The trustees had several questions for Helmintoller, stemming from a negative experience with previous drug treatment facilities.

"What we ran into was there were no kids from Matagorda County, they were assigned from all over the state of Texas," said Paul Johnson, Bay City ISD board president.

"The entity then, I don't know whether they got funding from the state or private insurances or a combination, but as soon as the money ran out they were well and they released them."

"Will your facility do the same thing," he asked.

Helmintoller said the students would remain in treatment for a period of nine to 18-months whereas previous facilities only kept clients for as long as three months.

He told the trustees that once the students were released from the treatment center they would be released back to the referring agency who would be responsible for seeing that they were re-enrolled in another school.

Johnson said that from his understanding, new changes to state law would require the district to include the kids in the school's general population.

"To my understanding there have been some changes in the state law now and we're required to put these kids in the general population," said Johnson.

"So you're asking us to take these kids that have emotional behavior and serious emotional behavior and, by your own statement, have drug issues and put them in with our kids."

Johnson explained that the expense of educating the kids from the past treatment facility was $60,000 to $70,000.

Trustee Randy Volkmer asked Helmintoller why Bay City was chosen as the place to locate Gulf Winds.

Helmintoller said Karen Hubbard, Gulf Winds therapist, grew up in Bay City and wanted to move back to her hometown.

When questioned about what positive impact Gulf Winds could have to the district, Helmintoller said the only purpose was to help kids.

"I don't know if you would call it positive but we are here to treat kids," he said.

"To make them better so they can be good members of society."

Johnson said the problem for the district is funding the extra measures it would take to accommodate the students.

"I understand what you're saying, but understand that we are going to be increasing the cost to the taxpayer too, and we are on very, very limited basis on funding right now," said Johnson.

"We're not like (other county schools) or any of the other Chapter 41 districts. They have a lot of money and we don't because they get an average of $600,000 for every campus."

"If we were in that position this wouldn't be a problem," he said.

"It's going to drive costs up for our taxpayers considerably."

Trustee Jim Humphries reminded Helmintoller that the responsibility of the board was to represent the best interest of the school district constituents.

"Remember the position that we come from is that we are representing our community for the schools and we are also representing those students out there and this will definitely impact them and definitely impact our tax payers," he said.

"And that has to be our concern above anything else."

Trustees also approved an $800 raise for all teachers and a one-and-a-half to two-percent raise for other district employees aimed at bringing them closest to the mid-point pay for their position.

Bay City High School student handbook was also approved at the meeting including the deletion of cumulative semester exams and exemptions.

According to Walt Wendtland, Bay City High School principal, the exams were not helpful to students and because of reward-based exemptions, caused too much lost instruction time.

Trustee Andrew Smith opened a discussion concerning the new paint on the field house and press box at Memorial Stadium.

Because the buildings have been painted a neutral cream color, the trustees agreed that the facilities should be re-painted in the traditional school colors.