Posted 1:09 am Friday, December 05, 2008
TISD Trustees To Consider Designs For Three New Schools
By MEGAN MIDDLETON
Staff Writer
At a special meeting today, Tyler ISD trustees will consider approving designs for three of the new schools the district will build as part of the recently approved bond election.
Staff Writer
At a special meeting today, Tyler ISD trustees will consider approving designs for three of the new schools the district will build as part of the recently approved bond election.
The board will meet at 11:30 a.m. in Room B-1 of the TISD Administration Building, 1319 New Sunnybrook Drive.
Floor plans and exterior elevations for Clarkston, Orr and Woods elementary schools will be considered today.
Orr and Woods will have designs similar to the Jack and Douglas elementary school model, with some slight modifications. Jack and Douglas were among the seven new schools built in the previous bond election approved in 2004.
Clarkston Elementary will have a different design than those schools built in the previous bond because of the land on which it sits.
Clarkston, Orr and Woods will be built on land where the current campus is located.
"We really began this work a while back, in terms of the design, and we need to get the final nod of approval from the board on those so we'll be able to proceed with the construction documents that will be necessary for us to go to bids with those," TISD Superintendent Dr. Randy Reid said this week.
Reid said that board members, at different times, as well as the district's leadership team and the principals of those schools have provided input on designs.
He expects the district will bid these projects for construction in late January.
Voters approved the $124.9 million TISD bond election on Nov. 4, authorizing the district to replace six campuses: Clarkston, Griffin, Jones, Orr and Woods elementary schools as well as the St. Louis School-Wayne D. Boshears Center for Exceptional Programs, which is a school for students with special needs.
Designs for the other two buildings the district will construct as part of the bond program -- Griffin Elementary and the Jones/Boshears joint school -- may be considered by the board at its regular December board meeting or after the Christmas holidays, Reid said.
The district is still finalizing plans to purchase land for a new Griffin Elementary. The board recently approved the purchase of land for the new Jones/Boshears campus. It is on State Highway 31 West, near Loop 323, behind the Westwood Shopping Center.
Also at today's meeting, the board will have a study session on the district's CSCOPE curriculum.
Teachers spent two days this summer being trained on the 5E model of instruction and the district's new online curriculum tool called CSCOPE, both aimed at helping boost the level of instruction in TISD classrooms this school year.
The 5E model of teaching is the new standard at TISD designed to engage students more in learning and help them think on a higher level. That model is embedded within the new CSCOPE online curriculum. The five Es are "engage, explore, explain, elaborate and evaluate."
Reid said that when trustees and the superintendent had their "Team of Eight" training recently, they discussed having periodic study sessions on topics they felt were significant and that they needed to be more deeply aware, such as the CSCOPE curriculum.
During the meeting, trustees will be shown sample lessons from CSCOPE to give them an idea of the rigor of the program. District officials will also explain how the implementation of CSCOPE is going.
