Great things are happening in the area of teaching and learning...AND school finance. Stay tuned for more.

Hello everyone. Bret Champion here with your weekly update.

You might think it's an odd combination to talk about teaching and learning together with school finance.

But when these two areas work well together, great things happen for students.

The independent school rating system, Texas Smart Schools uses academic, financial and demographic data

to identify school districts and campuses that produce high academic achievement in conjunction with cost-effective operations.

I'm pleased to tell you that Klein ISD achieved 5-stars, the highest rating.

Which means, according to this independent source, we wisely use the funds you entrust to us AND our students are highly successful.

And speaking of funds and teaching and learning. Last night, the board of trustees passed the yearly budget

that represents our projected financial and operational plan for this school year.

The General Fund tax rate remains the same. And the Debt Service rate will incease by 2-cents.

I want you to know the 2-cent increase is actually 5-cents less than what was projected during the 2015 bond planning.

More good news for our community.

We also were able to offer our employees a salary increase of 2%, which equates to $1,080 for teachers in this year's budget.

Klein also offers one of the most competitive benefits packages of area school districts.

And I'm excited to share the Transform Academy expansion is also in the budget.

Participating principals and teachers will learn about the innovator's mindset, visit other schools to observe school transformation in action,

and visit local architechts to explore future ready school design.

You'll hear more about this and other exciting teaching and learning opportunities in the coming weeks.

For now, I'm Bret Champion and that's Klein ISD in 90 seconds.