New Royse City ISD Stadium

I posted a comment about the new stadium being built in Royse City, but as of yet there has not been a response. I assume there is not much excitement about the new stadium. I thought everyone would be fired up and ready to win a state championship

Having a new stadium does not mean a state championship. It just means higher taxes. Hiring a big time winning coach might mean a state championship. Of course you have to have talented athletes too. I am proud for Royse City to be getting all these new things. I just wonder if the teachers are getting textbooks also. My son's class did not have enough last year. They couldn't even bring home readers. In most of my daughter's classes at the high school, they used class sets because they didn't have enough books. That concerns me more than a state championship.

Michael wrote:

Having a new stadium does not mean a state championship. It just means higher taxes. Hiring a big time winning coach might mean a state championship. Of course you have to have talented athletes too. I am proud for Royse City to be getting all these new things. I just wonder if the teachers are getting textbooks also. My son's class did not have enough last year. They couldn't even bring home readers. In most of my daughter's classes at the high school, they used class sets because they didn't have enough books. That concerns me more than a state championship.

I agree. The money spent on the new stadium could have been spent to build a new school. Now when we need a new school we will have to raise taxes.

Aren't we getting an inside practice field also? Boy Royse City must have some money somewhere. Sad they aren't spending it on their teachers.

Michael wrote:

Having a new stadium does not mean a state championship. It just means higher taxes. Hiring a big time winning coach might mean a state championship. Of course you have to have talented athletes too. I am proud for Royse City to be getting all these new things. I just wonder if the teachers are getting textbooks also. My son's class did not have enough last year. They couldn't even bring home readers. In most of my daughter's classes at the high school, they used class sets because they didn't have enough books. That concerns me more than a state championship.

textbooks come from the state and paid for by the state. if there are not enough textbooks, it's because of our rapid growth exceeding the number of books that were expected to be needed. books and construction have absolutely no corrolation to each other financially.
furthermore, teachers salaries have nothing to do with money spent for construction. your tax rate is comprised of 2 parts: 1 part is for maintenance and operations which is used to pay teachers, buy paper, pay utilities, etc. the other part is interest and sinking fund. this is used to pay long term bond debt which is building construction. this money is only used for this purpose and the voters must approve all bond issues at the polls. so no stadium, school, multi-purpose facility, etc. can be built without approval by voters if bond debt is incurred.
back to teacher pay....RCISD teachers are highly paid. our pay scale is comparable to other districts like ours in this area and is only slightly less than some of the wealthy districts.

Well I am glad to know that we are highly paid. I don't know where you get your information, but Royse City did not even give their teachers a dime raise this year. or last year either. The administrators get a cost of living increase but the teachers do not. On the bond issue you are right but on pay raises you are misinformed.

$2500 raise for teachers this year

Sarah wrote:

Well I am glad to know that we are highly paid. I don't know where you get your information, but Royse City did not even give their teachers a dime raise this year. or last year either. The administrators get a cost of living increase but the teachers do not. On the bond issue you are right but on pay raises you are misinformed.

Well...looks like you missed yours. Everybody else got one.

Gary, the raise came from the state. Every teacher in the state got that one. But the local board did not give the teachers a dime. They could have but didn't. It shows support when the raise comes from the local district.

Sarah wrote:

Well I am glad to know that we are highly paid. I don't know where you get your information, but Royse City did not even give their teachers a dime raise this year. or last year either. The administrators get a cost of living increase but the teachers do not. On the bond issue you are right but on pay raises you are misinformed.

Sarah, I don't know where you got you're information, but the Royse City School Board gave every teacher an additional raise on top of the state raise. Now, if you did not get one, there must have been a reason. But I know because I know several RCISD teachers and they all were happy to get the additional raise on top of the state raise. Just wondering why you would say something like that, when you obviously do not know.

I am not sure the teachers know exactly where the raise was given. Red, you might want to go by the administration building and check on the salary schedules, before you tell Sarah she is wrong. I believe RC only got the 2500.00 that was given by the state.

EDF wrote:

I am not sure the teachers know exactly where the raise was given. Red, you might want to go by the administration building and check on the salary schedules, before you tell Sarah she is wrong. I believe RC only got the 2500.00 that was given by the state.

Yep, checked it out and they gave their teachers an average 3.5% on top of the $2500. Nothing wrong with that.

Sorry, Red, but I work for the district. And there is no 3.5% raise in my check. Now the administrators got a raise. But someone is giving you wrong information. That is okay, it happens all the time.

Sorry Sally...they skipped you.

Red my family is from Glasco, KS. Weird to see someone from Beloit!!! Anyway, I assure you there was no extra 3.5% raise. It should also be known that the states $2500 was not really $2500. Some of our medical benefits were taken away to cover that $2500.

I was at the board meeting when that was discussed. Most of the board members felt that the state raise was sufficient at this time. It was discussed about
giving state and local raises but it did not pass. There were too many other issues facing the district (superintendent) when this took place.

Bill, your wrong. RC employee, your wrong too. True, the $2500 was not really $2500 because of the health insurance issue. Thanks for nothing Governor Perry!! Sally, yes the administrators got a raise and some of them got a very good increase. Bill and RC Employee...your interpretation is incorrect. Step increases were given. If you were over a 20 year teacher, you probably only got the so called "$2500" raise. If you were a 1 thru 19 year teacher you got additional money. The overall average was over 3%. Some got well over 3%, some got much less that the additional 3% The board was trying to get competitive with Rockwall and some of the other schools that were offering a $39K starting teacher salary. Soooooo....to make this perfectly clear, if you did not get the additional raise, you probably are a 20+ year teacher, and your $2500 was probably more like $1800 after you try to get additional health insurance. And Bill you are "dead wrong" about how the board members felt about the state raise. "Most members"...come on. One member may have asked a question for clarification. People...quit taking things out of context. Someone on here is always ready to bash something. Hey, it is a good district, they pay good wages, they are fair, they believe in honesty and character. A choice of increases was discussed, there were several. The choice was the one recommended by the administration. Read the minutes.

this started out as discussion with regards to the stadium and ended up about teacher salaries. I am not sure how that happened, but the point should be dealing with the question? How wise is the bond money being spent? Should we spend money on a brand new stadium when we know we will need new schools in the future. These new schools will cause us to have to vote for more bonds and cause us more expense. Is there an alternative to a new stadium?

Dont' think they can spend bond money on anything except what it is intended for. So the stadium stays. It is going to be gigantic. Maybe in a few years we will have enough people in Royse City that will fill half of it. I am looking forward to seeing it. Yes we will have to have new schools somtime soon.But we still have the middle school that is sitting vacant.

Joe wrote:

Dont' think they can spend bond money on anything except what it is intended for. So the stadium stays. It is going to be gigantic. Maybe in a few years we will have enough people in Royse City that will fill half of it. I am looking forward to seeing it. Yes we will have to have new schools somtime soon.But we still have the middle school that is sitting vacant.

Yes the decision was made by the majority of the people and there were strategic planning groups of citizens that put together the bond package. Even though the present stadium is overcrowded, it could probably serve the purpose for a few more years. However, the construction costs are not going to be the same in a few years either. It is probably a wise move to build now. Besides, I heard the school doubled in 10 years. If it does that again they are in deep trouble for a stadium. Looks like time to bite the bullet and go for it. 7500 does not sound "Gigantic", it just sounds very large to me. As long as it is for the kids and as long as it will keep them very competitive, I am all for it. I do believe they should keep the old stadium for the smaller kids for now. That is another issue, but they should have something to look forward too and playing youth sports on a multi-million dollar field could be very costly to the tax payers. Can you imagine cranking up that lighting system and the power to run a stadium that size. I am all for youth sports, but I don't see anything wrong with playing at the present stadium for that.