Good morning!  I hope you had a great week and weekend!  It was a busy week for me as I was in Austin Sunday through Tuesday, Board meeting Tuesday evening, principals' meeting, and many other activities.  It was certainly a good week as I learned more about legislative considerations for school funding in the state legislature and the economic stimulus package being considered by Congress in Washington, D.C.  The things being considered in Austin and Washington, D.C. have not changed much from what I wrote in last week's Monday Message, but we are learning more about the details of the proposed funding in both packages.  When I was in Austin I heard an individual from the American Association of School Administrators talk about the stimulus package.  As I mentioned last week, it would provide about $45.9 million over the two-year period for Northside with the funding going into the areas of Title I, IDEA (special education), and construction.  The good news I heard was that the funding for Title I and IDEA could be continuous funding after the two-year period.  This would be very good since it would allow us to do some things in terms of additional personnel and services which we would be unable to do if it were one-time funding.  Also additional monies are being appropriated to the states to support state funding formulas for education and for grants to schools.  The grants to schools would be for the purpose of incentivizing salaries in a way to attract the best teachers to high poverty areas, improve longitudinal data systems, and address the assessments used with special education children and ELL (English Language Learners) students.  Also, we were told that provisions would be in the bill that would provide incentives to make school bonds more attractive in this tight credit market.  I know that there is controversy in Washington, D.C. over what is included in the stimulus package, but whatever is placed there that will help schools is important.  Education is a key component of economic development and economic recovery and I know that we will use the funding in a way that will help us meet the requirements of the stimulus package and provide even stronger education support for our students.

On Saturday I attended the 36^th Annual Walter Gerlach Livestock Show and Sale.  We had excellent weather and the sale was a huge success.  Northside has one of the largest, if not the largest, vocational agriculture programs in the state at O'Connor High School.  The funds raised from the livestock sale go for scholarships for the students, and each year it seems the amount of money raised increases.  With the economic climate the way it is there no doubt was concern about how much could be raised.  I do not have the figures, but I was told that we came close to meeting and maybe exceeded last year's amount.  This is indicative of the tremendous support we receive from our community and the support given to our kids.  I want to thank Steve Chumbley, Director of the Agriculture Program, and all of our vocational agriculture teachers for all they do.  We have a great program and congratulations to all the FFA and 4-H students on a great sale!

Also, this weekend Northside hosted the Regional Academic Decathlon Competition at Stevens High School.  As usual, all of our Northside schools did great, but a special congratulations to the Warren High School Academic Decathlon team for winning the Super Quiz and placing first as a team.  Warren will advance to the state meet and as soon as we get all the results from the regionals we will know if other teams qualified for state.  In our regional competition O'Connor placed second, and Holmes/Business Careers placed third.  I am so proud of how well our academic decathlon teams do and I really appreciate all of the hard work of our coaches and students.  Northside is truly a leader in the state in Academic Decathlon!  I am proud of all of our teams!

Because I was at the Academic Decathlon competition I was unable to attend our district swimming meet.  However, I heard about the great competition and read about the results.  Congratulations to O'Connor High School on winning the boys championship and Clark High School on winning the girls championship.  These were repeat district championships by these two teams and I congratulate the coaches and swimmers of both of these schools.  Northside has a very large swimming program and I appreciate George Block, Assistant Athletic Director of Aquatics, and all the other personnel and coaches that work so hard to make our swimming program the great program that it is.

One of the things that Wyvonna and I love to do is go to our high school musicals.  Because we have so many schools and because of my schedule, it is difficult to make the performances.  But we did get to see Guys and Dolls at O'Connor High School last week.  It was a great performance by the students and thanks to Deann Fleming, Aaron Hufty, Eric Eaks, and many other instructors for their work with the students on this performance.  We really enjoyed it!

It always makes me feel so good to see the many wonderful things happening in our school district.  These things are happening because of the hard work and dedication of all of our employees.  Yes, we do well on all the TAKS testing and that is so important, but we do so much more in the areas that will contribute so much to a student having a well-rounded education.  Our academic programs are excellent, as are our fine arts programs, extra-curricular programs, and co-curricular programs.  We Believe in student success and so many programs contribute to that success.  And, it happens because of all you do!

Thanks for everything you do to contribute to the success of our kids and have a great week!