Dear Vega ISD Community,
Welcome back from Easter Weekend! Our students have been very busy with their scholastic and extracurricular activities and are certainly making the most of their opportunities.
Congratulations to our boys and girls tennis teams who both won the district championship last week. While Vega High School has had a state champion in tennis in the past, we have not been able to find another time when the tennis teams have both won the district championships. If there is a time, as far as we can tell, it has not been in recent memory. We have eight Longhorns and Lady Longhorns going to the Tennis Regional Competition in May. Check out the district’s webpage and Facebook page for more information and pictures.
Our One Act Play’s season concluded last week with a great performance in the Bi-District competition in Sudan. Two of our students received All Star Cast and one student received Honorable Mention Cast recognitions. All of our students and Ms. Ellis did such a great job with their production and we are very proud of them. Be sure to check out the district’s webpage and Facebook page for more information and pictures.
The boys and girls golf teams have begun their District Meet competition. This Tuesday was their first round and next week they will conclude with a second round. Both teams did very well this week and they both are currently in the lead heading into the final round next week. We wish them all the best of luck.
The Junior High District Track meet was last Thursday in Farwell. Both of our boys and girls track teams competed and represented our school very well with several individual district championships and many students placing and earning points at the track meet. The 8th grade girls were the District Runner Up Champions. Our other teams did well with the 7th grade girls finishing 4th in district and the 7th grade boys finishing 4th and the 8th grade boys finishing 5th in district. Be sure to check out the district’s webpage and Facebook page for more information and pictures.
Our High School track team had their final pre-district meet last Friday in Panhandle. Our students competed well against many larger schools with three first place finishes and five other students earning points in different events. They will be well prepared for the District Track Meet on Thursday and we wish our students good luck.
Vega High School is hosting the UIL Academic Meet this Friday. We have over 40 students competing in different events who will represent our school well. We wish our students good luck as they showcase their academic skills.
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 are Vega ISD’s greatest challenges? The top responses we received were budget deficit, decrease in student enrollment, and being able to retain and recruit high quality teachers (more on this in a future Longhorn Weekly article about the Teacher Incentive Allotment opportunity). 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 mean 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.
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.
Thank you,
Jerry Adams
Superintendent
Vega ISD