MISD designated Healthy South Texas Campus
By Clayton Kelley
Moulton ISD received a proclamation designating MISD as a Healthy South Texas Campus at the Aug. 14 meeting.
“The Healthy South Texas Program is an initiative that reaches 27 counties in South Texas,” County Extension Agent Natalie Knesek said. “We have state dollars that helps provide health and wellness programing across those 27 counties. This is the second year that Moulton ISD has been designated as being a Healthy South Texas recognized campus.”
This is recognized by the Texas A&M AgriLife Extension. A HST school is one that took extra steps throughout the year to offer food and nutrition programs outside their regular curricula to both students and families.
“The requirements are not light by any means,” Knesek said. “You have to have a school-wide ‘walk across Texas.’ That s a walking program where we aim to walk 832 miles in a time frame and Moulton as a school chose to do it all year long which brings me so much joy. All of the elementary students participated in ‘walk across Texas.’”
Another requirement is that at least two classrooms must participate in one of the curriculums HST uses. The thirdgrade class did a gardening program for this.
“That was a huge successful program for the third-grade class which involves gardening and knowing where your food comes from and the nutrition behind it,” Knesek said. “The sixth graders also did a program. That was called ‘mindful-self within.’ It’s six lessons and is about knowing yourself, recognizing strengths and weaknesses, building positive relationships with each other, and recognizing ways to control your stress.”
The final thing the school district has to do to achieve this recognition is that there must be a parent program.
“That program was a meal-prepping program,” Knesek said. “It was three lessons, and the participants learned some techniques for the process of refrigerating and restoring foods and learning some food safety. I had a youth volunteer who came in on the side and did activities with the kids who stayed with their parents for that program.”
In action items, MISD board members adopted a resolution to approve an engagement letter with Leon Alcala, PLLC to serve as bond counsel.
“With the intent to look at the possibility of a notax increase bond, we need to retain bond counsel to make sure that we do everything correctly,” Superintendent Renee Fairchild said. “They have a very good reputation and work with several school districts around us.”
Alcala will only get paid if the bond gets approved and is sold.
MISD also considered funding for students to go to the National FFA Convention.
“Anytime students travel out of state, they have to have permission of the board,” Fairchild said. “Our Ag Teachers would like to have the opportunity to take some of our students to Indianapolis for the National Convention. Registration opens in September and things fill up pretty quickly. Students will cover their own airfare and all other expenses would come out of the school account.”
This item was tabled for the next meeting so MISD can look over the budget to make sure the numbers are solid enough for the school to cover this. This would not come out of CTE money.
MISD elected a delegate and an alternate to the Texas Association of School Boards Assembly.
Carol Dvorak was the delegate board member chosen while Daniel Beyer was elected alternate.
“It’s very interesting,” Dvorak said. “There’s a bunch of policies and procedures that are discussed as far as what the association has recommended.”
Other items on the agenda include:
• MISD approved an agreement for the purchase of attendance credit.
• A framework was made for the Amplify curriculum which is the new Reading and Language Arts curriculum provided by the state for kindergarten through sixth grade.
• MISD discussed budget information and are still deliberating the budget.
• Coach and teacher Randy Stevenson made public comment protesting the district’s stipends.
• The first high school Cross Country meet is slated for Aug. 17 in Yoakum.
• MISD started its first day running two bus routes. The Texas Emissions Reductions Plan grant the district applied for was approved. The grant was in the amount of $141,521 and will go towards the purchase of two new busses.
• Electrical for the Career and Technology Education building is slated to arrive in about three to four weeks.
• MISD scored 100% on its accountability school rating.
• The district is currently working on tweaking its Code of Conduct for the 2024-25 school year.
• It was reported that 280 students attended the first day of school. This number is expected to increase as the district expects more students to enroll.