Brent Hawkins
Superintendent Diboll ISD

Thanks to the management of the Diboll Free Press for allowing me this opportunity to communicate monthly with its readers about Diboll ISD.

The Diboll ISD board of trustees, staff and students are committed to being the "District of Choice" in East Texas. The campuses have consistently maintained "acceptable" or "recognized" accountability ratings and have met Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) for the No Child Left Behind Act. Diboll Junior High and Diboll High School were recipients of the Governor's Educator Excellence Awards this past year. Temple Elementary qualified for the Texas Educator Excellence Grant this year. We have had campuses receive as many as five Gold Performance Awards from the Texas Education Agency in recent years. Two years ago Diboll ISD boasted the highest TAKS scores in the county, along with the lowest student to teacher ratio among all public schools in Angelina County, according to the Angelina County Chamber of Commerce.

This year Diboll ISD has placed an emphasis on health, safety, and long range planning. We have implemented the Raptor System that scans driver's licenses and ensures that sex offenders are not allowed access to classrooms and commons areas. The recent installation of security cameras on all campuses allows monitoring of all entrances and property.

We have an outstanding nursing staff that has been instrumental in starting the School Health Advisory Committee (SHAC), and the Texas Department of Agriculture audited our Child Nutrition Department, revealing high quality service. In the month of May, the district will complete the School Safety Audit process and plan where necessary. The district has just recently undergone an extremely intensive Curriculum Management Audit from the Texas Association of School Administrators that will be the impetus for long range instructional planning. From top to bottom our extracurricular opportunities for students are simply the best. We place great pride in being "A Community of Champions."

The district looks forward to greater engagement of our parents and community with an emphasis on planning and shared decision making. Our "School Reach" call system notifies parents of special events and communications. "Parent Connect" allows parents to view their child's grades, attendance, and discipline records via the internet. In the coming weeks parents will be able to view student math and reading practice scores, as well as print lost assignments at home. Also in the coming days, you will see the Diboll ISD website, www.dibollisd.com, revamped to be more reflective of the excellence we seek.

We are also proud to say that the state PTSA president, Jan Wilkerson, calls Diboll home. I encourage you to join the PTSA and become part of those exciting supports they offer our schools.

The Diboll ISD team strives toward keeping kids safe and accelerating learning. We look forward to our relationship with you, as together we build Champions.