Leander ISD reeling from 75 percent cut to materials budget

"What we don't want to lose sight of is that this is $14 million less over the biennium that Leander ISD is being hit with because they rolled the technology fund and the textbook funds together," Champion said. "You can buy all the electronic textbooks you want, but it's like, where are they going to read them?"

District staff members said they worked for months to decide how best to allocate the funds, which were not outlined in the board's packet. The board unanimously approved ordering the instructional materials.

"It's always our goal to have our instructional materials in place once the students are in school so they don't have to wait," Skoveria said.

Other highlights from the April 19 LISD board meeting:

Data warehouse

The board considered the development of a data warehouse—a digital database used for data reporting and analysis. At the May 3 meeting, the board will vote on using up to $2 million in 2007 bonds to purchase services from Decision Ed Group Inc., a data warehouse vendor. The data warehouse is intended to sort and store student and staff information, which district administration could later analyze.

More staff positions

The board approved opening 19.5 new staff positions totalling $728,225, including a band director, three English as a second language teachers, 10 special education instructional aides and others. The district received requests for 156.75 new positions for next school year. Fifty-seven new positions have been released, costing $3,058,743, according to district documents.

Bus routes

The LISD board approved bus routes discussed at the April 5 meeting.