LIVE OAK, Texas – Hundreds of students in the Judson Independent School District will attend new schools next year after the board approved closing four schools and implementing a new attendance boundary map.
These changes are part of a plan to address a budget deficit that also includes staffing cuts.
“The first step in our journey is campus consolidations,” Interim Superintendent Robert Jaklich said.
The district approved the revised map at a special-called board meeting on Tuesday, April 14. Under the changes, some students who were previously zoned to attend Veterans Memorial High School will now be zoned to attend Judson High School.
“We did a redesign so we could be sure that we have two middle schools each that fed into our campuses while meeting our goals of maintaining campus size, looking at equitable use of our facilities, and making sure we are utilizing our campuses to the best of the ability,” said Lacey Gosch with Judson ISD.
School board trustees Jose Macias Jr. and Laura Stanford said some families said they felt decisions were moving forward without enough community input.
“I had an opportunity to speak to the parents that put the town hall together, and one of their disappointments is that they walked away from that meeting, town hall feeling like the decision was already made, and so there’s now some disappointment that now their voice does not matter,” Macias said.
One guardian in the district shared a message with KSAT, writing, “If the changes go through, (their student) will be set to go to Judson High School. This puts him at a school with more students and a school with lower scores.”
Judson ISD offers school choice, which allows students to attend schools outside their assigned boundary, but transportation will be a challenge.
“They no longer will be able to take a bus to Veterans Memorial,” Macias said. “We’re still a school of choice so parents can still pick whatever school they’d like to attend, but without transportation, it makes it difficult for parents to make sure their child can go to the school that they would like them (to go to).”
School Board President Monica Ryan agreed with Jaklich’s plans to change campus boundaries. However, she said comments online, specifically comments about people not wanting their students to attend certain schools in the district, brought her to tears.
“If you think you’re too good for a certain school, then maybe this isn’t the place for you because that is not the culture that we are building in Judson,” Ryan said.
In addition to the boundary changes, the board also voted to eliminate a few hundred positions.
“In order for us to get to a balanced budget, in order for us to go from 91% in personnel to 84% in personnel, we must eliminate 536 positions,” Jaklich said.
The district said many of those jobs are currently vacant, but 77 cuts will come from current staff. Jaklich said they hope to find other jobs for the people in those 77 positions once they’re identified.
The district has not yet determined which employees will be affected.
All of these initial steps to make these changes were approved during the April 14 special-called board meeting to address the district’s budget deficit.
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