[caption id="attachment_130194" align="alignright" width="460"] Family members of Joe Lee Johnson celebrate a school named in his honor.[/caption]

RRISD names newest elementary school after local historic figure

The district’s newest elementary school will be named in honor of former principal, coach, teacher and bus driver Joe Lee Johnson, who worked for Round Rock ISD from 1950-86 and died in 1994. The RRISD board of trustees approved the name 6-0 on Dec. 17. The board also approved the attendance zone for the new school. The school’s boundaries will include a portion of Bluebonnet Elementary School students who live south of SH 45 N and half of the students who live north of Merrilltown Drive and attend Wells Branch Elementary School. The rezoning will reduce capacity at Wells Branch from more than 100 percent to 65 percent. The new elementary school at 2800 Sauls Drive will have more than 500 students when it opens for the 2016-17 school year. Members of Joe Lee Johnson’s family attended the meeting, including his wife, Mellownie Johnson, who is a retired RRISD teacher. Naming committee representative Michelle Sherwood, who first introduced the name recommendation to the board Nov. 19, said math, which Joe Lee Johnson taught, would be an important subject area in the new school. “He pushed his students to be all that they could be, and then pushed them some more,” Sherwood said.

A local legend

Joe Lee Johnson was a graduate of Hopewell School, which served as the only school for African American students in Round Rock from 1922-66. After high school, he joined the military and served in Korea, according to Mellownie, who spoke with Community Impact Newspaper in 2008. He moved his family to his hometown of Round Rock in 1948, after graduating from Huston-Tillotson University, Mellownie Johnson said. Joe Lee Johnson also became a coach at the Hopewell School. He later served as principal when the school was integrated into RRISD in 1966. Following desegregation, he taught math at Central Elementary School and volunteered at the Young Men’s Club, according to the Round Rock Historic Preservation Commission. After retiring in 1986, Joe Lee Johnson continued to work as a bus driver for the district. He was declared a Round Rock Local Legend by the city in 1991.

Grant funds Lanier HS resource center

A family resource center will open in early February at Lanier High School thanks to a federal grant. The $2.5 million grant went to local nonprofit Austin Voices for Education and Youth, which announced it would spend it on the new FRC. FRCs assist families with employment, housing and other issues considered barriers to students receiving education, nonprofit Executive Director Allen Weeks said. The Lanier FRC will have new programming and offer more adult education opportunities. “We’ve seen that schools that have family resource centers have been able to improve attendance and academic [performance],” he said. The funds will also be used to hire community school coordinators at Burnet Middle School and Cook and Wooldridge elementary schools and create parent education programs such as computer literacy at all four schools.

Year in review

Austin ISD • The school board unanimously voted Jan. 26 to name Paul Cruz as superintendent, making him the first Latino to hold the post in AISD. • The AISD board of trustees approved a nearly $1.2 billion budget for the 2015-16 fiscal year during a meeting Aug. 31. The budget included a 3 percent salary increase for full-time and part-time AISD employees. • Construction of the Anderson High School Applied Technology Center continues in 2016. AISD broke ground on the 14,500-square-foot facility in November 2014. The center will provide science, technology, engineering and math, or STEM, and computer science educational opportunities. Pflugerville ISD • In April, PfISD approved a pay increase for all district staff as well as about 70 new positions. Pay raises were based on pay rate, tenure and other factors. • The district broke ground on High School No. 4 in August. The high school is located on a 150-acre tract of land near Lake Pflugerville. • In November, General Motors Co. began a partnership with River Oaks Elementary School to increase STEM awareness and education. The GM IT Innovation Center is located less than 2 miles from the River Oaks school, and GM invited community members to provide financial support or mentor students. Round Rock ISD • On Sept. 17 trustees voted unanimously to set the property tax rate at $1.3325 per $100 of property valuation. The rate is a $0.005 decrease from last year’s tax rate of $1.3375 per $100 of property valuation. However, because property values have increased since last year’s tax rate was adopted, property owners will pay more in taxes with the lower rate. • On Dec. 8, RRISD announced its direct-to-college enrollment rate for the class of 2015 increased 1 percent from the class of 2014. Seventy percent of RRISD students who graduated in 2015, or 2,127 students, enrolled directly into college and started in the fall 2015 semester. Austin Community College • In February the board approved a 13-person Bond Oversight Advisory Committee to oversee the nearly $386 million in bond projects approved by voters in November 2014. • A $4.9 million biotech lab will be built at the ACC Highland campus, the school announced Feb. 6. Money for the project comes from the state’s Emerging Technology Fund. • Highland Mall, the city’s first regional indoor shopping center, closed April 30 after 44 years to make room for the next phase of ACC Highland, a$152.8 million makeover slated to open by summer 2019.