BEAUMONT, Texas — At the Thursday night Beaumont Independent School District board meeting, members discussed everything from the leaked accountability ratings to more funding for teachers.
Administrators told board members that BISD salaries are quickly falling behind compared to other Southeast Texas school districts. After trimming as much as they could from the budget it's still not enough to give raises.
The district hasn't given raises in the last two years and now they want help from voters.
BISD is proposing a voter approval tax rate for the upcoming November election, in the hopes of providing all employees across the district a 5% raise.
Recently, board members approved a 2% raise that employees will start seeing on their September checks. The other 3% would be added starting in December, if the district gets the green light from voters.
Superintendent Dr. Shannon Allen says it's vital to keeping teachers and make sure BISD students are supported.
"So many mandates have come down without having the additional resources. We want to make certain that we have a highly qualified competitive salary so that we can make certain that we are recruiting and retaining high quality staff members and team members," said Dr. Allen.
She says employees would also get a $1,000 stipend as a Christmas bonus regardless of whether the tax rate passes. Dr. Allen says employees haven't received a raise in the last two years.
She also tells 12News this tax rate would generate $13 million that would not only help achieve raises but also help pay for armed security guards on each campus to meet state requirements. She says there were only given $15,000 per campus from the state.
Dr. Allen also reacted to the decision to delay releasing the state accountability scores. A judge issued a temporary halt on Monday, August 12.
It came on the same day five districts sued over the state's changes over how the STAAR test was graded, including the use of Artificial Intelligence.
Nearly two weeks ago, BISD's preliminary ratings were leaked. Nine campuses received failing grades, while seven campuses received a D.
"The concern that Beaumont ISD has with the state assessment system as well as their accountability system they are not unique to Beaumont. So we're not making excuses when we look at our performance and we see where there are areas that we absolutely need to grow in but the system is flawed," Dr. Allen said.
The state accountability ratings were originally supposed to be released to the public Thursday, August 15. This is the second year in a row that a judge has blocked their release.