Hallettsville ISD Focus on Facilities

As part of the District’s Strategic Plan, Hallettsville ISD adopted the following Vision and Goal on March 18, 2019.

• Vision - HISD will have a safe and progressive infrastructure for students and staff that encompasses multi-use facilities for academics, athletics, and career development.

• Goal - HISD will provide safe, efficient, and appropriate educational facilities to meet the needs of the school community.

As part of an ongoing series of articles regarding the proposed HISD bond, the following quotes were compiled by the Hallettsville ISD athletic staff and administration to give the community a better understanding of the proposal developed for the November 5 bond election.

Athletic Director Levi Montgomery:

“Adequate athletic facilities for day-to-day operations remain a tremendous challenge for the student-athletes of Hallettsville ISD. Each day, hundreds of boys and girls utilize our athletic facilities. The facilities HISD has now simply cannot accommodate the number of kids involved in competitive athletics. Additionally, Hallettsville remains a 1990’s model of athletics in terms of facilities. In the last 30 years, the number of female athletic opportunities has skyrocketed. Hallettsville female athletes compete in cross country, cheer, basketball, soccer, powerlifting, tennis, track and field, and softball. The facilities we have now do not accommodate our female athletes and the teams they comprise.”

Girls Athletics Coordinator Callie Kresta:

“A challenge that I see with our current gym set up is locker room space when we have home games or are hosting playoff games. When a visiting volleyball team travels to play our Lady Brahmas, we do not have a visitors locker room for them to change in. They have to change in the restrooms in the foyer. During basketball season, the visiting girls team has to go into the boys locker room at halftime and the visiting boys team into the girls locker room during their halftime. When hosting volleyball playoff games, the teams have to create a schedule for our one girls locker room. We have had teams not want to use our gym due to our outdated locker room facilities. While we are blessed to have added a fulltime athletic trainer, the current training room functions more as a storage closet. When the facility was built in 1999, that space may have been sufficient but with advances in athletic training and growth in student participation, we have now outgrown that space.”

A final issue with our current gym is storage. The gym has one small storage closet and it cannot hold all the equipment and materials. The closet currently holds the bench chairs, scorer’s table, and basketball racks. To get the basketballs or chairs out, the scorer’s table has to be taken out first. Cheer mats, basketball shooting machine, volleyball serve machine and volleyball spike assist device are all stored in the hallway or against the wall in the gym.”

Head Volleyball Coach Courtney Olbert:

“This season UIL has decided to crown 2 state champions, in both Volleyball and Basketball, in each classification with the exception of 1A, this has now removed the option of teams attending a Regional Tournament. This means that teams will have to search for playoff sites for the first 5 rounds of playoffs. Hallettsville is centrally located in South Texas, and having these facilities would give us the opportunity to host numerous rounds of playoffs, including our own.”

Head Boys Basketball Coach Brock Gerlich:

“With the current athletic facilities, it is hard scheduling practices for the 13 total basketball teams, grades 7-12, for boys and girls. The HS boys teams have to be bussed to the Junior High School gym 2 days a week for practice. Additionally, the freshman and JV teams have to play games at the Junior High gym if there is a home game for our high school teams. With a total of around 45 boys playing basketball at the high school level, all 3 teams cannot practice at one time. We are very appreciative of the gyms we have, but they are not at an appropriate size for 45 kids to achieve a productive practice. We have to manage the practice times of all 3 teams and can only have 2 teams at a time in the gym. This means that at least 2 times a week, one of the boys teams is practicing at 6:00 a.m.-7:30 a.m. Our visiting girls teams have to use the home boys locker room for dressing before and after games. They also use the home boys locker room for half times. This raises concern when the JV boys teams are bussing back to the high school after their game at the Junior High. The locker room must be checked by a female coach before the boys can enter their own locker room to change out of their uniforms. Again, this is a concern because the boys could accidentally walk in on the girls changing or the girls walking in on the boys.”

Head Girls Basketball Coach Hunter Hlavaty:

“Additionally, the officials only place to dress is the Girls Coaches Office, which puts the coaches out of their own office. Hosting tournaments is not really feasible with just 2 gyms. This takes away the only practice areas we have for all of our other basketball teams needing to have practice.”

Athletic Trainer Shannon Flores:

“I have the privilege of being the first full time Athletic Trainer for Hallettsville ISD. Currently, the athletic training room has 1 table, storage cabinets, an ice machine, and a whirlpool. There is no room in the current training closet to perform treatments or exercises. Therefore, I have to move the athletic training room into the hallway where there are two training tables, but still limited on activity space. I see up to 10 athletes for morning treatment and trying to figure out a spot to put them to help them receive the most adequate treatment can be very stressful. A well-functioning Athletic Training room has about 3-4 treatment tables with room for strength and mobility exercises.”

Cheer Sponsor Renae Phillips:

“The HHS cheerleaders are a vital part of our school spirit, hosting a Mini Cheer Camp with over 100 participants from our community and practicing twice a week from August through January to prepare for pep rallies and the UIL State Spirit competition. Despite their dedication and growth, we are facing a significant challenge: our cheer team, which now includes over 20 cheerleaders and mascots, lacks an adequate space for essential activities like sign painting, storage, and practice.

Currently, we are limited to a small corner space in the attic area of the gym, which is far from sufficient for our expanding program. A new gym, with a designated cheer room, would provide space to properly support our cheerleaders and enhance their ability to represent our school and community.”

High School Principal Mason Briscoe:

"This space will also serve as a venue for graduation ceremonies, (in case of inclement weather events), school assemblies, and pep rallies. Also, from an academic viewpoint, this additional gym facility may open up multiple opportunities for a variety of students because all athletic periods could be held either first period or last period allowing master scheduling conflicts to be a thing of the past.”

Junior High Principal Marisa Maes:

“As our community continues to grow, our current junior high gym is no longer sufficient to meet the needs of both our middle school and high school programs. Our students need adequate space for their practices, games, and events, and with the high school frequently needing to use the junior high gym for volleyball games, basketball practice, and color guard practice, we’re stretched too thin. A new high school multi-purpose facility/gym would relieve the strain on both campuses”

Elementary Principal Stephanie Grahmann:

“With an increase in enrollment at Hallettsville Elementary, space is limited for family events during the school day. The proposed multi-purpose facility/gym would allow for more events for elementary parents, families, and the community. This additional space accommodates a larger attendance and multiple grade level events at a time.”

HISD Superintendent Jo Ann Bludau:

“Hallettsville ISD is currently in the UIL Region 4 25-AAA Volleyball and Basketball District competing with Columbus, Edna, Rice, Industrial, Palacios, Tidehaven, and Yoakum. Whereas, Hallettsville has 2 gyms for practices and games, our athletes’ competitors have 3 or more gyms and practice facilities. The lack of practice facilities/gyms currently places a burden on families to get athletes to early morning practices as well as home from games that run late into the evening hours on school days. Having multiple gyms allows districts to expedite games and play girls and boys JV and Varsity games simultaneously resulting in students getting home earlier. In response to the question, “What would our current gym be used for if the District builds a new gym?”, the District would most likely use it for physical education classes as well as Freshman and JV practices and games. Hallettsville ISD strives to compete academically as well as athletically, and the limited number of gym facilities places our students at a competitive disadvantage with other similar sized school districts in our area.”