Bay City Tribune

Bay City Independent School District trustees considered a proposal for adding a third assistant principal at Bay City Junior High during their regular monthly meeting Monday, Oct. 20.

Brandon Hood, Bay City Junior High principal, gave a short presentation outlining some benefits of adding a third assistant principal at the junior high following this fall's addition of all BCISD sixth graders to the junior high campus.

"I can tell you now, I wouldn't be standing up here talking to you if I didn't feel like we needed this for the best interest of our students," said Hood.

"A lot has changed since last year, it has changed for the better and I just really feel that this would be a valuable component for success in our district."

Hood said that adding sixth grade to the junior high campus brought an additional 282 students, 16 teachers and two instructional aides.

"This translates to an increase in teacher evaluations, discipline, parent conferences, ARDS and more student supervision responsibilities," Hood said.

The current assistant principal ratio is 425 students to one assistant principal, which is the largest in the district compared to 279 to one at the high school 288 to one at McAllister Intermediate and 238 to one at Bay City Intermediate.

According to Hood, one of the benefits of adding a third assistant principal would allow for grade level principals.

"This would allow all administrators to be more available for students, parents and faculty members," he said.

Paul Johnson, BCISD board of trustees president, pointed out that from a business standpoint, the board had not been provided enough numbers to compare last year's statistics to the current statistics.

"Ya'll have said that you've gone up in this and gone up in that but I haven't seen any number figures in relation to last year," said Johnson.

"What I'm seeing is moving the sixth graders might not have been a good move."

"I'm just talking from a business standpoint," he said.

"That makes me wonder how well this was all planned out."

Johnson suggested that there may be other, cheaper options to consider before hiring a new assistant principal such as hiring an additional guidance counselor or asking the intermediate school assistant principals to spend a couple of days a week at the junior high campus.

Keith Brown, BCISD superintendent, told trustees they needed to keep in mind that assistant principals are being asked to take on a more visible presence in the classrooms.

"What I think we're not talking about is that we're changing the way that they're doing their job in that we're requiring them to be in the classroom with the teachers as much as possible, providing instruction and being an instructional leader," said Brown.

"We want them in the classrooms finding out what these teachers are teaching so that our accountability goes higher on our employees and our students. That function has changed totally."

In other BCISD news:

Janet Peden, local Boys and Girls Club of America board member, requested trustees consider leasing a portion of the Pierce Elementary School campus for the purpose of opening a local Boys and Girls Club.

Charles Swanks, Bay City Intermediate School custodial staff member; Leroy Cunningham, BCISD police chief; Stacy Schwartz, BCISD electrician; and Martha Johnson, Bay City Junior High librarian, were the staff members honored with the BCISD Celebration of Excellence award;

Cherry Elementary, Tenie Holmes Elementary and Linnie Roberts Elementary were presented with exemplary campus plaques and McAllister Intermediate School received the recognized campus plaque;

Bay City High School agriculture science teachers gave a short presentation on their department and the FFA activities.