The Sealy ISD Board of Trustees hosted its most recent regular meeting last Wednesday, June 23, in the Sealy High School cafeteria.

A board workshop, budget workshop and public hearing preceded the open meeting where Project Manager Mike Zapalac provided updates on the junior high flood damage and parking lot projects. Superintendent Bryan Hallmark also presented portions of the COVID-19 protocols that will be in place for the upcoming school year.

The open meeting started with the superintendent’s report where Hallmark recognized the efforts of Zapalac in guiding the repairs of flood damage at Sealy Junior High following a storm the first weekend of the month.

“He’s worked seven days a week and he’s made this happen. I think we’ll be back in our offices before we know it,” Hallmark said.

Zapalac said he’s enjoyed the learning process and expects the offices to be ready July 15.

“I’m enjoying every moment of it, not necessarily enjoying a bad situation, but you can always take advantage, you can look at the good that comes out of it,” Zapalac said. “When we get back in, we’ve got new offices, new carpets, new everything. We’re in a good place.”

During the action-item portion of the agenda, Zapalac received approval to award a contract to MBC Management for the paving project at the overflow lot at T.J. Mills Stadium outside Sealy Junior High School. He said the project was set to kick off July 2 and was scheduled to be finished Aug. 13, six days before the first home football scrimmage and 14 days before the Tigers’ first regular-season home game.

COVID-19 planning update

Hallmark presented the COVID-19 planning update after his superintendent report where he said the goal “is to get back to pre-COVID operation as much as possible, as long as it keeps students and staff safe.”

“A lot of the things we had in place, as we roll back restrictions, it’s really going to take burdens of students and staff,” Hallmark said. “We’re going to have to do things like sanitization but that won’t involve students and teachers and it won’t interrupt instruction.”

He said remote and virtual instruction options won’t be available now that the TEA Commissioner no longer has the legislative right to let districts do remote instruction. He also said although they will still track COVID-19 cases, they will not be forced to quarantine individuals who came in close contact with the infected individual.

“When we have an active COVID-19 case, we still have to report it to the state and still have to report that to the community, but they’re not contract tracing for quarantines and close-contact,” Hallmark said. “The other thing that we know and have already decided, we will not require a mask going forward and since we made that decision, Governor (Greg) Abbott has come out too and that’s not even an option but we’ll support those who do wish to wear a mask.”

He said ideally, the district will get to a place where they can treat COVID-19 like other common illnesses.

“If you have (COVID-19), if you’re positive or suspected positive, you stay home until you’re symptom-free and you’re not contagious,” Hallmark said. “I think the best way is to treat it like the flu and if someone has the flu in the classroom and they go home, we’ve never gone back and said, ‘OK, everyone who sits around them goes home too.’ We’ll keep doing some things on our end to keep it from spreading.”

He said fogging and deep-cleaning procedures over breaks and long weekends will remain, as will sanitization and water bottle-filling stations.

Other action, presentations

In other action, the board also approved items presented by Executive Director of Human Resources and Operations Shawn Hiatt (a policy change for 2nd grade report cards to move to standards-based grading, a revision to the hiring schedule and a TASB-recommended adjustment to Board Resolution CB) and Special Education Director Shae Whatley (the hiring of a parttime Licensed Specialist in School Psychology (LSSP) position).

Also during the meeting, Assistant Superintendent Chris Summers presented the board with a STAAR testing update where he said the district’s preliminary results indicated they were either on-pace or ahead of results around Region VI and the rest of the state as a whole.

Hiatt also presented updates on local policies regarding purchasing and acquisition, facilities construction and compensation and benefits – leaves and absences.

Budget workshop, public hearing

CFO Lisa Svoboda led the budget workshop and laid out the schedule where the board will approve its finalized budget at August’s regular meeting. When the board approves its budget, it will also approve its tax rates, which were preliminarily set to decrease 6.6 cents.

She said some of the lingering variables that will help round out the budget include open positions, employee compensation – the board is still determining whether to give raises at a midpoint or based on salary – and the certified values that will come from the Texas Education Association July 25, just before the board’s next meeting three days later.

After that, Svoboda said TEA will establish a maximum compressed tax rate Aug. 5 and then the board will make the final approval at its Aug. 25 regular meeting.

Special Programs Director Mary Gajewski led the public hearing where she outlined where funds would be applied to from Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) and Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief (ESSER) II funds. For the full presentation, visit SealyISD.com and hit the Federal Grants tab under district headlines.