Dear Vega ISD Community,
What an exciting time to be a Vega Longhorn and Lady Longhorn! Our community was able to experience the solar eclipse this past Monday, April 8th. According to NASA’s eclipse explorer, our community experienced a 82.4% max percent coverage from the eclipse. That just goes to show how powerful the sun’s rays are because the sky did not darken very much even with just under 18% of the sun not being blocked by the moon. The school district received seventy-five complimentary eclipse glasses from Buc-ee’s and the Houston Museum of Natural Science. Because we wanted to make sure all of our students and staff were able to safely view the eclipse, our school district ordered additional eclipse glasses so that everyone had their own set of glasses to use. Because of this, our teachers were able to use the solar eclipse as a fantastic learning experience for all of our students. Be sure to check out our webpage and social media page for more information and pictures.
Last Friday our school hosted the UIL Academic contest. Our staff did a fantastic job coordinating and hosting the event. We received many compliments from the other schools and judges about the way our staff conducted the contest.
Congratulations to our UIL Academic team for winning the District Championship for the fourth year in a row! We had many students win the District Championship in their individual events and had many District Championship Teams as well. On top of that, many of our students placed in their events and qualified for the Regional Academic Meet later this month in Canyon. Students will receive their medals and ribbons this week and more information and pictures will be on our webpage and social media page.
Congratulations to our boys and girls golf teams who both won the District Championship this week. The individual boys district champion, girls district champion, and girls district runner up champion all come from Vega High School. Check out the district’s webpage and facebook page for more information and pictures. Both golf teams will advance next week to compete in the Regional Championships in Amarillo. Good luck to our golfers! Be sure to check out our webpage and social media page for more information and pictures.
Last week our high school track team competed in the District Track Meet in Panhandle. Big congratulations to our boys and girls track teams for their hard work and achievements at the district meet. We have sixteen students who qualified for the Area Track Meet this week and our students won a total of six District Championships in various events. Please check out our webpage and social media page for more information and pictures.
On top of these district meets, we had students competing in the Region 1 Rodeo Finals, our GT students took a field trip to the Panhandle Plains Museum, and our elementary and middle school students took their class pictures. This weekend is the State FCCLA Leadership Conference in Dallas, the Area CDE FFA Contest in Lubbock, and the 2nd grade and 4th grade field trips to the dairy. Also, progress reports were emailed and sent home this week - if you have any questions about your student’s progress, please reach out to his or her teacher.
Thanks to everyone who completed the stakeholder survey. We have been sharing the trends we received from the different questions on the survey. This week we will look at the question: What one word comes to mind when you think of Vega ISD? The word most used to describe our school district is - “family”. Other words that were used at a high frequency include: excellence, community, home, pride, small, strong, and committed. These are all fantastic descriptors of our school district.
On that note, our district has kicked off a transfer campaign on our website and social media in order to increase our student enrollment. An increase of 25 students throughout the district (that’s about two students per grade level or about eight families of three school-age children each) would go a long way in reducing our deficit budget. Please note that to be eligible to be accepted as a transfer student to Vega ISD, all students must be in good standing with their current school district, have good attendance, and have no discipline issues. Check out our transfer landing page on the district’s website that talks about our school and how to apply for a transfer. If you feel comfortable doing so, please “like” the social media posts and share them on your own social media pages. If you need any help in doing this, please reach out to our office. We would be glad to help.
Last week we talked about one of the biggest challenges to the school district from the stakeholder survey was the budget deficit, decrease in student enrollment, and being able to retain and recruit high quality teachers. Over the past several years, we have experienced a decline in transfer students enrolled in the district. Less students means less funding from the state. This decline in students has corresponded, in part, with an increase in the deficit budget. One way to help reduce the deficit budget is to regain some of these transfer students who we have lost. More students means more funding from the state. An increase in student enrollment is one of the ways the state allows school districts to gain revenue since there was no increased funding provided for public schools in this past legislative session.
As always, if you have any questions or if we can help in any way, please reach out to your campus principal or to my office.
Thank you,
Jerry Adams
Superintendent
Vega ISD