Gonzales ISD board approves new calendar, HVAC upgrades

Among the list of approved action items on Monday’s agenda, the Gonzales Independent School District (ISD) school board approved the upcoming year’s calendar as well as an addition to Phase 2 of upgrading the HVAC systems around campus.

Gonzales ISD administration came up with six different calendars, then allowed staff from different campuses to vote for which they think is best.

“We had a 46.6% vote for 1B, the one that we’re going to want you to adopt tonight,” Gonzales ISD Superintendent John Schumacher told the board Monday. “We may have one early release in May. We would know that more in August on Sept. 11 when we play Fredericksburg. Right now, we’re looking pretty good other than if the state changes some of the testing days, or something like that. We pretty much got our schedule set.”

Schumacher explained the current plan limits the amount of half days so that when the staff has professional development days, it would be a full day.

The school board voted unanimously to adopt Version 1B of the calendar, which will be available online at gonzalesinquirer.com. The first day of school in the adopted calendar is Aug. 17 with graduation set for May 28.

HVAC equipment upgrades

Gonzales ISD is moving forward with and updated “Phase 2” of their overall plan to replace nearly 200 HVAC units across the district.

In April 2019, the school board went ahead with plans on replacing the HVAC units that use refrigerant R22, a product that will no longer be available for purchase. With the completion of Phase 1, the district is now moving to Phase 2, with the additional option of adding wireless access to the units.

“In a normal day, when my guys get called out to go fix things in our classrooms, 99 percent is because it’s too hot or too cold in the classroom,” Gene Kridler, Gonzales ISD’s Director of Operations said. “For him, myself or possibly even somebody else, [we should] have wireless access on their phones to get into that unit and see what it is instead of having to drive over there and figure out what it is and assess it.”

“I think it would be a good direction for us to go as a district,” he added, “to be energy efficient, to help with that aspect of it as well, to create schedules when we don’t have to go to the individual unit itself, we can do that on the phone or an iPad or a desktop as well.”

The addition of wireless technology to the HVAC units was unanimously approved by the school board. The board will also discuss, in a future meeting, adding wireless capabilities to the previous units that have been upgraded in Phase 1.