CISD seeing enrollment decline due to COVID

Cameron ISD has seen enrollment numbers go down since the beginning of the school year.

Superintendent Kevin Sprinkles told the CISD Board of Trustees during a regular meeting Monday night, Sept. 14, that the district has seen a sharp decline in enrollment most likely due to COVID.

“In our case we are a rural school that is seeing people who are not able to make ends meet or provide and those people are moving possibly in with their family or to find a job,” Sprinkles said.

He said the dip is sitting around 100 students currently but they district is slowly seeing those students return as September rolled around.

He said that the greatest number of students not returning was at Ben Milam and Yoe High.

“These students are not lost out there,” he said. “Some of them are homeschooled, some are in the younger grades that aren’t required to be there, some have moved to other districts.”

He said there may be a budget impact to the district from that number of students not returning, but at this time he sees this as an anomaly and those students will hopefully return once this time passes.

He also said that about 16 percent of students in the district are learning remotely at this time.

COVID update

Sprinkles said CISD has seen 12 confirmed cases of COVID across the district, both students and staff.

Sprinkles said the district has been coordinating with the Milam County Health Department on confirmed cases and they have been handling the contact tracing outside of the school.

“The goal once we have someone is to immediately do the contact tracing,” he said. 

He said there are currently five of the 12 that are still in quarantine – three staff members and two students.

Sprinkles said that every parent on a campus and all staff members on that campus will be notified should someone on that campus test positive for the virus.

Other business

Sprinkles said the principals on each campus reported a very smooth start to the school year.

“I think the kids are just happy to be back and the teachers are happy to see their students,” he said. 

He said that remote learning is going well and that all hands are on deck to make sure those students aren’t following behind.

The board also approved the conveyance of properties held in trust to the City of Cameron and properties held in trust from the City of Cameron to Cameron ISD during the meeting.

The board ended the meeting with a discussion of the facilities update discussed at the last meeting.

All board members stressed that the district needs to look at getting roofs replaced on those campuses that need it. Board members also discussed starting to look at ways to update the district’s CTE facilities, mainly the Ag building and barn and what should be done with the Old Yoe building should it be decided to use it for something in the future.