Sandies Back to School as Students and Administrators Settle in for New Year
By Greg Ritchie
Messenger Reporter
GRAPELAND – With the return of school bells, bustling feet, new school duds and plenty of controlled chaos as new students and teachers settled in to the new routine, the Sandies have begun a new school year full of hope, excitement and plenty of changes and improvements, too.
The Grapeland Independent School District (GISD) officially welcomed students back Wednesday, Aug. 16, with an expanded calendar to accommodate the modified “four-day” school week in its first year of trial, awaiting the verdict of parents and administrators as they evaluate the effect on students – and themselves.
GISD Superintendent Dr. David Maass was one of those working to get everyone in place and worry about the million last minute details to get kids back to class, admitting it was a busy week.
“Things will settle down in a few days,” Maass said. “Once everybody gets where supposed to be and where they’re supposed to go, it’ll settle down and everything will be just like it was last year. It’s been very busy with so much to do but I find that helps the days go by faster, moving from campus to campus checking on our progress.”
“We had an assistant principal at the elementary school leave at the last minute, and we found a good one. Her name is Karina Cummings and she’s great.” Maas said. “We’re fully staffed and all the kids are back and I had some meetings with each grade level giving them a rundown of the rules and different things that have changed a little bit.”
Maass recognized the excitement to play on the new Sandies field, noting the football team is a young team with plenty of room and time to grow, saying the football squad is in a rough district but will be competitive this year, noting “we have some big boys on our offensive line.”
At the recent GISD meeting, the district hired a second School Resource Officer (SRO) to be housed at the elementary school: Kasey Ballard, recently of the Houston County Sheriff’s Office. Ballard will stay on call at the sheriff’s office, but given her experience dealing with issues involving children, Maass was pleased to add her to the district’s roster.
Maass said GISD has benefitted from a safety consultant hired to help the district stay in compliance and keep the campuses safe.
“We completed our three-year safety audit with a couple of things I need to do to approve it,” Maass explained. “We have also updated our emergency operations plan at all of our annexes, and because we’re so close to the railroad tracks, that was important get done.”
Maass was happy to note the district is looking to lower their tax rates for the coming year which, along with recent state tax relief, should lower the tax burden on property owners, in spite of the rising property appraisal values.
GISD is also waiving tuition for Pre-K 3 and 4 to students who previously would not have qualified.
“It’s a benefit for our community and I would hope no one was not sending kids because they had to pay, but they won’t have to pay now – if they were holding back their kids because they had to pay,” Maass said. “Because those kids were coming into kindergarten maybe behind or not on a level playing field as the other kids who went through the Pre-K.”
The district will still require transfer fees for some students and students looking to get into Pre-K already have a sibling in the district.
Greg Ritchie can be reached at [email protected]
