Monday - October 12, 2009
Good morning!  I hope you had a great weekend and enjoyed the cool weather.  At the football games both Friday and Saturday nights it felt like "football weather."  I am certainly ready for some cooler weather, and we are really thankful for the rain we have had.

I know I am still on cloud nine from the TASA/TASB Convention and the performance of our students.  We continue to receive emails and comments about how great the performance was, and I want you to know that it is now posted to our website and you can view it.  Again thanks to the teachers and students involved in the performance and Northside will continue to be the talk of the Convention.

Northside Education Foundation donors to the 2009 Employee Pledge Drive kept the beat of NEF strong to the tune of $181,417.49.  A total of 6,978 employees showed their support for NEF by contributing to this year's campaign.  While the total number of donors was down by three percent from the previous year, the total amount of donations was up by four percent.  Special congratulations go to all 20 campuses and sites that reached 100 percent participation, up from 14 last year.  Of special note is Clark High School that not only reached 100 percent participation, but also was the highest percent increase from the previous year winner going from 90 donors last year to 255 this year.  Thanks to all of you who donated to the 2009 NEF Employee Pledge Drive.  Your contribution will help provide many grants to our teachers and will help keep the Foundation strong.  Last week I had the opportunity to speak at the 20th Anniversary of a school foundation that was started when I was superintendent in that district.  School foundations are an important part of the support of a school district and contribute so much to the success of students.  Thanks, NEF, for all you do for Northside!

September 25 was the day for our Base Day enrollment.  Our enrollment on that day was 91,578 students which was 1,022 students over the original projection.  Even though this was over our original projection, Stan Drezek, Director of Resource Planning, had been predicting for some time that our enrollment would come in about 91,500 students and he was right on the mark.  This represents a growth of 3,178 students over our base day last year and 3,899 over the end-of-year count last May.  I believe this growth has occurred because of families moving to San Antonio from out-of-state because the job market is better here, families moving into apartment complexes to avoid paying property taxes, insurance, and maintenance costs of a house, and a migration of students from private to public schools.  As I have said before, if we grew almost 3,200 students in this economic climate, then what will our growth be when the economy improves and the housing market makes a rebound.  Truly, Northside is the "destination district."

This growth shows the need for discussions to begin about a bond issue in May of 2010.  This month a Citizens' Bond Committee comprised of almost 250 people will begin the discussion and study of the need for a bond election and items which are needs to the district that should be included in the bond.  This phase of exploring and planning for a bond is very important, and the Committee will ultimately make a recommendation to the Board of Trustees about whether we should have a bond election in May and what should be included.  The final decision is a decision of the Board of Trustees and that will probably be made by January or February.

To keep you updated on the plans of vaccination of our students and staff for the H1N1, I have very little additional information to report beyond what I have already shared with you.  We did think that we would begin vaccinations this week or next week, but we are now told the vaccine has not arrived in the state in terms of the quantity that is needed to begin the school vaccinations.  It looks like it may be around the first of the month in November, and Shirley Schreiber, Director of Health Services, has put together an excellent plan, although this delay in receipt of the vaccine will definitely put us into January and possibly February as to completion of the inoculations.  Brian Woods, Deputy Superintendent for Administration, and Don Schmidt, Assistant Superintendent for Student, Family, and Community Services, are the ones who will work administratively with schools to implement the plan.  We continue to have students absent due to sickness, but Thursday our absenteeism was 5% which is down from the 6%-7% we had been experiencing district-wide.  We will continue to keep you informed as we are given more information.

Certainly our school nurses are staying busy this school year with students displaying flu-like symptoms at school.  During the month of September our school clinic activity was:

• Clinic visits - 114,303
• Medications - 26, 474
• Procedures - 4,677

Most months there are less than 100,000 total clinic visits and other medical actions.  Normally, 94% of the students who come to the school clinic are returned to class following the visit; however, in September only 91% were returned to class.  Be sure and take time to thank your school nurse for all they are doing in this challenging time.  And, I also want to say a big thank you to each of our school nurses for all you do to help our students, and all the work load you are carrying at this time.  You are great!

I, along with all school districts across the state, am concerned about the loss of revenue from the state due to the drop in attendance being caused by the flu.  In Northside a 1% drop in average daily attendance will cost the district approximately $4 million.  Generally, we will run about 96% attendance rate, but if we were to drop to 93% or 92% it would cost us twelve to sixteen million dollars.  There is a provision that if a school drops below 90% attendance the state will give a waiver, but that is insufficient for what is happening at this time due to the flu.  Even though we might get some relief by campus, it still does not address the drop in attendance when your district attendance rate is still above 90%.  Also, if the district attendance rate was to drop to 90% because of the flu then that would cost us about $24 million.  School districts across Texas cannot afford this kind of reduction in revenue from the state.  We work very hard on having good student attendance, but we certainly do not want students who are sick at school.  Hopefully, the state will provide school districts with some relief.

In closing, I want to congratulate our fashion design students at Holmes/Business Careers, Warren, and Stevens for their participation in a Fashion Show and Seminar sponsored by the International Academy of Design and Technology.  There were other school districts who also participated and the fashion show exhibited clothing designs of seventeen countries.  I was able to attend the fashion show and I was amazed at the creations and design of the clothes that were modeled by students.  I really enjoyed it and I thank the teachers - Deborah Sparks of Holmes, Cynthia Lowrey of Warren, and Sandra Taylor of Stevens - for their work in helping the students design the apparel and model the designs.  This is another example of the great work our students do.

You help students be successful every day, and for this I thank you!  Have a great week!