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August 14, 2009

Community greets new JISD teachers

Anonymous The Jacksonville Daily Progress Fri Aug 14, 2009, 07:59 AM CDT

By Nathan Straus

nstraus@jacksonvilleprogress.com

Jacksonville Independent School District welcomed community members and school employees to a meet and greet with breakfast Thursday. Approximately 130 attended the New Employee Breakfast. It lasted from around 8:30 am to 9:30 am.

The meal was hosted at Central Baptist Church in Jacksonville on Highway 79 and sponsored by both the church and Austin Bank, which brought food to the event. In addition to nearly a room full of JISD employees, several representatives from the Jacksonville Chamber of Commerce and Jedco attended. Robert Nichols, Texas State Senate District Three, also visited.

Once everyone had gotten their fill of various breakfast foods including egg, sausage, bacon and breakfast rolls, professional employees from each school were introduced to the crowd.

During the event, representatives from each school stood and spoke to the crowd on what their schools had accomplished and what they plan on accomplishing. A common element was how each school functioned as a close-knit family in order to better educate the students and serve the community.

Jacksonville Mayor Robert Haberle also stood to talk about the relationship between the city and the school and how pleased he was with the district’s recent performance.

Recent Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills performances placed JISD closer to a district-wide recognized rating, a rating which would reflect positively on students, teachers and the community as a whole.

This breakfast greeting has been performed for three years; before then it was done inside the school cafeteria.

Marc McCloud, public relations officer at JISD, said one of the school’s board members had commented about the crowd looking smaller than last year’s, but also added the numbers show a small increase in new teachers this school year.

“In the 2008-2009 school year we had 79 professional employees, usually teachers, resign,” McCloud said. “For the 2009-2010 school year, we have 60. It’s a 20 percent reduction in turnover rate.”

The school employed 442 professional employees last year; this year the number is about 450. At approximately 875 employees, the school is Jacksonville’s largest employer.

District Superintendent Dr. Joe Wardell said he believes the school has a good bunch of incoming teachers.

“We’re going to do the very best we can do,” Dr. Wardell stated. “Our goal is to move up to being a recognized district.”

Several new teaching positions were funded by stimulus money: a math strategist at the Joe Wright campus, a math instructional lab aide at the Nichols campus and a math strategist at the East Side campus.

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