By Daniel Piotrowski

editor@jacksonvilleprogress.com

The Bullard Independent School District has a new partner to help it provide the best education possible for its students — the Bullard Education Foundation.

The BEF kicked off its new mission at an event Monday night at K.E. Bushman's on Farm-to-Market Road 2493 in Bullard. The foundation was announced to BISD teachers in August during convocation, but “this is our first real event,” BEF Director Amanda Tekell said.

Foundation President Darren Davis said he and BISD Superintendent Keith Bryant had first met about getting the BEF started. He said it became obvious that Bullard was a place that was waiting for an education foundation to be established.

Davis said they came up with a core group made up of business leaders, parents, retired educators and current BISD staff members. He said they looked at what other successful education foundations were doing around the state and found that their goals were the same.

“So instead of writing a new playbook, we took their playbook and ran with it,” Davis said.

After presenting the idea to the teachers, they generated a lot of excitement in the community that they planned to build upon with Monday's event. He said the purpose of the night's event was to bring in members of the community along with potential donors and tell them what the foundation is all about, what it wants to do and how they can be a part of it.

When he approached the board about the idea, Davis said he received unanimous support for the idea.

“What it is is really simple. In fact, when I had the idea first explained to me, I thought that can't be right. It sounds way too simple. And the truth is that it is right. It is that simple,” he said.

Davis said the neat thing about it is the funds generated and raised go directly to the classroom. He said there is no agency to decide where the money should be spent and there is no red tape.

“That's what makes it different and makes it exciting,” Davis said.

The board and foundation believe Bullard is the ideal place to put together an education foundation, he said, and Bullard is putting all the pieces of the puzzle together to become the premier school district in all of East Texas.

“An education foundation is a big piece of that puzzle so to speak. And that's what brought all of us together and that's why we're all here,” Davis said.

He said private schools, colleges, universities and trade schools all use foundations to raise funds. So school districts asked themselves why not do that for public schools.

“We really are doing this for the kids. That's why everybody's excited about it and that's why these folks have been working so hard to this point,” Davis said.

The BEF president cited three goals of the foundation: Awarding grants to teachers, recognizing achievement and providing scholarships. He said the grants would fund innovative projects by the teachers that would not normally be funded by the district.

“What we want to do is provide the teachers and the students the ability to get on the creative side, get onto the innovative side and to start touching some minds, like I said, that may not be already touched,” Davis said.

Davis said they want to go beyond recognizing the A students and recognize students who have overcome obstacles and recognize their achievements. They also want to let the students identify teachers who have made a difference in their lives. The achievement program will take place in the spring.

“Our mission is real clear that we want to take these goals and we want to take these desires and we want to partner with the community and we want to enhance the educational experience for every student in Bullard ISD,” he said.

The BEF is already entrenched and has already achieved its 501C3 certification for a charitable organization from the IRS, Davis said. He said it normally takes longer, but they received it in two-and-a-half months.

The Bullard ISD received also received a $15,000 grant from the Texas Pioneer Foundation, whose purpose is to help people start education foundations. He said he was very excited about it and that the TPF was already “on their radar screen” for the grant.

Davis said they have already received donations from the community, including some from people who were in the room Monday night. The grant committee has already come up with grant requests and they plan to get buses together to drive to the schools and present grants to the teachers in the classroom.

“In this first year, we are going to affect the students in ways you can't imagine,” Davis said.

What the five campuses with about 2,000 students contain is the community's future he said, and the foundation will be there to affect that future.

Bryant thanked Davis for his work. He said he did not know many men who would have the vision to come back after serving in Afghanistan and hit the ground running to serve the school district.

Bryant said the very first impression he got when he came to Bullard was the expression of professionalism by the staff.

“I've never been around a teaching staff that works as hard at helping the kids be successful,” he said.

As they think about the opportunity to impact the education of the kids based upon money, he said the possibilities are limitless. He said superintendents are usually not good at talking about money because they recognize the need to be aware of budgets and of the fact they are spending the public's money.

Bryant said the board adopted a vision statement two months ago: “Excellence through Education.” The foundation is now part of that move toward excellence.

“If we are going to be the premier district in East Texas, which is our goal, we can't settle for mediocrity. And we challenge our teaching staff and our administrative staff to move toward that goal of excellence,” he said.

Bryant shared an analogy about shiny pennies and scarred pennies. He said they want to serve the needs of the students who are like “shiny pennies” as well as those who are like “scarred pennies.”

“So our staff every day through their professionalism — they work hard to make sure we meet the needs of both kids. And this foundation and the money that is going to be spent at Bullard ISD will help us meet that goal of excellence through education,” he said.

Bryant said every penny raised by the foundation will go directly to the classrooms. He thanked the audience for what they will do and have done as a community to leave behind a legacy through the foundation.

Susan Smith, BEF secretary, said the foundation would be an inclusive group.

“We want everyone in this community to participate,” she said.

Smith said they plan to give a recognition banquet. She students who show good citizenship by always being helpful and lending a hand deserve to be recognized, even though they may be C students.

State Rep. Chuck Hopson said education was very important to him since his wife and other family members are educators. He said these foundations are important to the education of children in East Texas, and the state's legislators have worked to help them.

“A lot of the things we've done for the foundations is we've made it easier for them to start them. We've started now doing some technical training that the foundations didn't cover before. And some of the foundations in my district now these kids can not only go to college, but they can go to technical schools and the foundations help them get scholarships. So there are a lot of things we can do,” Hopson said.