Diboll ISD trustees call May 10 election

Diboll school trustees called the May 10 trustee election at their meeting Tuesday, Feb. 26. Three positions will be on the ballot.

The terms of current board President Trey Wilkerson, Sandy Hendrick and Chuck Mann will be up for renewal. As of Monday morning, March 3, Diboll Police Chief Kent Havard was the lone candidate to file, doing so Friday. Filing ends at 5 p.m. Monday, March 10. Although schools will be closed for spring break, superintendent's Administrative Assistant Sarah Rios said she will be

in the office all day for anyone who wishes to file.

Trustees received a proposal on bilingual instruction for early grades that would adopt a multi-year approach for young pupils entering the Diboll district with poor English skills. The program would feature transitional instruction ranging from 90-10 Spanish-English instruction in pre-kindergarten classes to 90-10 English Spanish instruction in the fifth grade and full English instruction in sixth grade.

The aim of the program is academic proficiency regardless of the language spoken, said speech pathologist David Stokes. Students with a sound academic background in their native countries can excel regardless of English ability, he said. Stokes said later that about 25 percent of Diboll's Hispanic students have limited English proficiency.

Superintendent Brent Hawkins said later in the week that the latest "snapshot" of student population showed that the Diboll district is 52 percent Hispanic, 34 percent Caucasian and 14 percent African- American. The district's student mobility rate, or the percentage of students moving into and out of the district from school year to school year, is at 20 percent, which Hawkins agreed is a very high rate and increases the difficulty of multiyear educational efforts.

In other business, trustees tabled adoption of the school calendar for the 2008-09 school year after Rene Lowther, a Temple Elementary teacher, expressed concerns that the opinions of all teachers had not been considered by the committee that recommended the calendar. Trustees agreed to study the issue during the next month as a fairness issue.

At the beginning of the meeting, Hawkins presented Lisa Mann, secretary in the operations department, with the Silver Ax award for January, given to support personnel for outstanding performance. Mann, wife of Trustee Chuck Mann, had to miss the January meeting because of a sick child, so she accepted her framed certificate a month late.

Parent Teacher Student Association member Fran McClain told trustees that Diboll's Jan Wilkerson was elected president of the state association of PTA clubs.