SUGAR LAND, Texas — KHOU 11 is your Education Station. For the third year in a row, we conducted a back-to-school survey to learn your questions and concerns to address with area superintendents.
Fort Bend ISD goes back to school on Wednesday, August 9. Their superintendent, Dr. Christie Whitbeck, kicks off this year’s talks and we wasted no time getting to parents’ questions from the survey.
Our first question was about the district’s top priorities this year.
“I would say safety,” Whitbeck said. “Always looking at what we need to do any differently with safety, but top priority continues. That kind of aligns with discipline because we've got some new things we're rolling out in terms of discipline.”
The district is taking new measures to reduce vaping and fighting on campus.
FBISD reports 797 of the 80,000 students in the district were involved in fights last school year. That's down slightly from the year before when they say they saw 847 students in fights.
One parent in our survey asked what the district is doing to hold students accountable for bad behavior.
You can see the extended interview with Dr. Whitbeck and Mia Gradney below
“This year, our students are going to be told within the first day or two of school that fighting is going to be taken to another level,” she said. “And we've brought it up that if it's disruptive, we're going to send you to the alternative school. We're not just going to put you in in school suspension or out of school suspension.”
“Were you not sending students to alternative school before?”
“Fighting is considered a discretionary placement, so alternative school, first of all, think about the mandatory placements -- drugs, alcohol, weapons. Those are the first things we think of. And those are mandatory. It doesn't matter what the principal thinks. hose kids are going to go. Fighting is discretionary,” Whitbeck said. “The levels of wrong are always analyzed, but we are having harsher consequences in Fort Bend.“
Parent Nathan Pinnings asked through our survey what the district is doing to retain teachers.
“We are giving a supplement,” she said. “We're still kind of waiting and hoping that legislators will meet and address school finance so that we can look at more permanent compensation."
Parent Raychel Jo wanted to know how free lunch is determined.
“Free lunch is an application process so parents fill out an application,” Whitbeck said. “It's federal and there's a government guideline. They did create a new change this year, that if you qualify for free or reduced lunch, you'll automatically be given breakfast."
There are some exceptions, like campuses where everyone receives their lunches for free.
“We made the decision to add two campuses to that, which just means that if let's just say 65% of the school was on free lunch, but the others were not, that that whole school would just be free,” Whitbeck said.
From lunches to learning, there's always room for improvement, but the new school year offers plenty of promise.
“We have such an amazing district,” she said. “Let's embrace all that we have, that's good. And then we'll handle what's not."
Up next in our back-to-school conversations with Houston-area principals -- Alvin ISD on Thursday.
Back-to-school survey
The questions that we took to Dr. Whitbeck were from our back-to-school survey. We want to hear from you. What's important to you this school year. Let us know in the survey below!