TSPR Grape Creek Independent School District

Appendix C
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATOR AND SUPPORT STAFF SURVEY RESULTS

Demographic Data/ Survey Questions

Narrative Comments

NARRATIVE COMMENTS
The narrative comments below reflect the perceptions and opinions of administrative and support staff survey respondents of Grape Creek Independent School District and do not reflect the findings or opinion of the Comptroller or review team.

Our elementary principals do not discipline at all the way they should. Sometimes things are not handled at all.
The classrooms and cafeteria are not kept clean.
As a substitute for numerous schools I feel that the administration is a joke. The principal acts like an immature child herself. The counselor has even told the students that she has come to expect them to fail. The teachers are in tears half of the time.
Grape Creek does not provide pay raises for employees with 20 years or more.
The insurance plan is too [costly] for teachers.
Good teachers are not paid enough to keep them in our district.
Administration is not consistent or strict enough with discipline techniques.
Our plumbing is outdated.
The needs of high-level students are not being met.
Grape Creek ISD is providing the best education [it] can for our children with the resources [it has]. The Board of Trustees attends workshops to improve their knowledge and ability to do the best they can for the district. The district works with and encourages community participation in all areas. More classrooms are needed, but the money is not available.
Curriculum - keyboarding is needed in the 4th, 5th and 6th. More computer fundamentals for 7th and 8th - of course HS could always use more computers for research projects. Speech in 7th and 8th.
Non-college students need more guidance and help in preparing for job[s] and what is required for the work force and daily living.
College-bound students need more help with college selection and scholarship or financial help.
The state needs to help districts that grow too fast to keep up with buildings and equipment. Taxes and state funds are always a year behind after the children enter the school.
Grape Creek ISD has recently gone from a K-8 district to K-12 district and is experiencing "growing pains." The current administration is making great strides in financial management and also improvement the effectiveness of classroom instruction. Grape Creek ISD has a bright future.
I am a retired teacher who subs regularly at Grape Creek ISD. I have been impressed with the quality of education I have observed there. I did not retire from this school system so I have been able to compare it with others and feel they have a good thing going and are working hard to improve the educational opportunities for their students.
I believe that Grape Creek ISD student performance demonstrates the high commitment to academic education for all students. This district outperforms the state and regional averages in all AEIS indicators. Our special population students perform higher than other state and regional school districts and yet we have fewer exemptions on TAAS than other schools! GCISD does an excellent job educating students in this community.
I believe that quality education for students is [goal] number 1 at Grape Creek ISD.
I feel confident that my child is getting a good education from this school district.
The superintendent continually looks for ways to improve our district. He is a vital individual that...is making a difference with our school.
I feel it should be the law for all schools to have one adult aide and one adult bus driver on every bus, for the safety of our children.
I live and substitute in San Angelo, which pays $52.00 per day as opposed to Grape Creek's $45.00 per day. I enjoy substituting at Grape Creek because aides come in and out of the rooms and...the substitute has a lot of positive support.
I recently moved to this district with my 3rd grade daughter. I feel they are definitely meeting the educational needs of my daughter, although I would like them to give elementary students more computer classes (i.e. math and writing labs) and art classes as well as music-they have no art class and only go to music once a week. These classes don't seem important but they do get a child's creative juices flowing.
I think the instructional aides at GCISD are sorely unappreciated. Not just by their salaries, but also by the fact that since they have no contract[s] they pull all the "other duties as assigned" designates. Yes, most of them don't have a college degree, but that doesn't mean they are less important than a teacher is. The morale among the instructional aides has been steadily decreasing for several years now. Over the last few years or so our so-called step salary increases have gone to increasing insurance cost. Most of our instructional aides work with groups of children and are just as responsible for the children's lessons as a teacher. The aides get no conference period because they are in the copy room making copies.... This year, our elementary instructional aides are not only doing lunch duty for their grade level but also cover one lunch duty for middle school. The middle school students eat in their classroom and their aren't enough middle school aides to cover all the classrooms so the elementary aides are pulled away from our student's instructional time to cover the middle school lunches. Instructional aides are not covered by any TEA teacher laws so most of them are afraid to speak up for fear of being fired because they are not covered by a contract. I understand that working for a school district has its perks, i.e. summers and holidays off, etc. I know teachers aren't paid an extremely high salary but when you look at our aide's salaries of about $800.00 a month our school district should be ashamed! Our aides all attend the same in-services as the teachers and most of them attend summer workshops to better themselves also. Most of them also do their own lesson plans (with the teacher's approval) for the children they work with, and many times they are pulled when no substitute is available and teach the class for the entire day, and still have to do their lunch duty. When this happens the aide doesn't get a lunch period-they eat while doing their lunch duty. I hope things change very soon before we lose some very good aides to other jobs where they are appreciated and paid better.
I would like to see the district and the administrators support (financially and physically) the fine arts programs as much as they do the athletic programs. Teacher morale is dangerously low. We as teachers would like the school board trustees to have a better understanding of what each of the campuses' strengths and weaknesses are. We would like to be able to communicate directly with the trustees and not be afraid of...repercussions [from] our campus administrators. Experienced and seasoned teachers that leave the district are never replaced with experienced teachers but with recent graduates. Much time is lost by having to train new teachers. The district should have incentives to attract experienced teachers.
The district does not meet the needs of very intelligent and gifted students or those bound for technical or workforce jobs at the high school level. The district's support staff and paraprofessionals are underpaid. Facility maintenance, community input and lack of school violence and vandalism are high points.
There is no security at school.
Too much money is spent on athletics [such] as for grass seed to keep baseball fields green year round. Maintenance people do not do maintenance work...work is outsourced, plumbing, electrical, a/c, heating. Bus maintenance is also outsourced.... Not enough backup bus drivers.
Transportation Department needs a lot of work done to make it run efficiently. Money is being wasted every day on these buses. We need to hire a full-time mechanic instead of putting these buses in a garage for every little thing that goes wrong with them. A lot of money would be saved.