Spring Branch ISD Featured News

As the home stretch of the school year begins, the Spring Branch ISD school board will hear a report March 22 on the district’s efforts to get students back in person in class during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

The final nine-week grading period of the school year will begin March 22 and the report to the Board of Trustees that night will show that 79 percent of Spring Branch ISD students are back in class in person, up from 55 percent at the start of the school year.

 

The Spring Branch ISD school board will meet at 7 p.m. March 22 at the Northbrook High School auditorium, #1 Raider Circle in Houston. One of the featured items on the board meeting agenda will be an update report on LearnSBISD, the district’s plan for educating students during the pandemic.

 

Many schools across the nation have remained closed to in-person learning during much of the school year because of the pandemic. Spring Branch schools have had both in-person and distance learning since near the start of the school year, and teachers and staff have worked hard to create and maintain a safe learning environment.

 

In-person student attendance has risen steadily during the year. The new report shows 26,125 Spring Branch students will attend classes in person over the final nine weeks of the school year. Another 7,064 students will use distance learning.

 

By comparison, during the first nine weeks of the school year, 18,043 SBISD students attended classes in person while 14,912 used distance learning for their classes.

 

“We are excited to have so many of our students attending class in person, engaging directly with our great teachers,” SBISD Superintendent Dr. Jennifer Blaine said. “Our teachers have been committed to high quality instruction for both in-person and distance learning and our students have worked hard during what has been a very challenging year for students, families and teachers.”

 

Spring Branch had about 2,400 students who did not come back to school when classes started last August. Other school districts across Texas had similar declines. Spring Branch has worked aggressively to locate the missing students and as a result has accounted for 96 percent of the 2,400 students who did not return.

 

Through home visits, collaboration with the Communities in Schools organization, the hiring of a dropout recovery specialist, database searches and many other efforts, Spring Branch officials found and brought back to school 284 students who had left. Another 1,331 students were found to have moved to other Texas school districts, 69 moved out of the country, 290 moved out of state, 213 moved to private schools and 99 began homeschooling.

 

Spring Branch ISD educates about 33,000 students across 47 schools from pre-kindergarten to high school. The district employs about 2,200 teachers.