New superintendent officially hired
The board officially named Kirk Koennecke as the new superintendent following a 21-day waiting period in accordance with state law after naming him as the lone finalist Nov. 18.
"This is such an amazing community," Koennecke said. "When we talk about high quality public education in America, this is it. This is the destination. This is the dream for me professionally."
Koennecke has served as superintendent in Ohio school districts for the past ten years. His contract in EISD will begin Jan. 1.
Board receives community feedback on budget optimization plans
Following the board's Nov. 18 discussion on four potential budget optimization packages, a ThoughtExchange survey opened from Nov. 20-Dec. 5 to gauge the community's thoughts on potential next steps to reduce future projected multimillion dollar budget shortfalls.
The survey saw 1,856 participants provide 1,079 thoughts and 40,423 ratings. Of the participants, 1,128 were parents or guardians with children in the district; 354 were secondary students; 330 were staff members; and 90 were community members without children in the district.
Key takeaways from the survey include:
- 579 participants rated the importance of EISD prioritizing a balanced budget, even if it requires changes to current operations, a 3 on a scale of 1 to 5, with 1 being not important at all and 5 being extremely important
- Participants' top 3 ranked principles to guide budget reduction decisions were minimizing impact on the classroom with 760 votes, providing competitive compensation to staff with 205 votes and protecting advanced academic programs with 137 votes
- Based on their current knowledge of a voter-approval tax rate election, 24% rated that they were not at all likely to support a VATRE with a 1; 11% rated they were extremely likely to support with a 5; and 33% rated a 3
5 new courses could join Westlake High School's catalog
The board voted to submit five new courses to Westlake High School's course catalog for the 2026-27 school year.
Per agenda documents, new secondary course offerings are submitted by staff in the spring prior to the next school year's course catalog development. The teaching and learning department then reviews the proposals over the summer, determining feasibility based on instructional materials cost, staffing allocations and more.
Courses approved by TLD are then voted on at the campus level through the campus leadership team, which are then voted on by the district leadership team and brought to the board of trustees for a vote.
The proposed courses voted on by the board include:
- AP Business with Personnel Finance
- AP Cybersecurity
- Fundamentals of Real Estate
- Dual Credit English 1301 and 1302 through Austin Community College
- Dual Enrollment Statistics through UT OnRamps
