The Pilot Point School Board approved the proposed tax rate for the 2026-27 school year and reopened discussions about future bonds.
Chief Financial Officer Brittany Floyd provided a breakdown of the 2026 Tax Rate. The Maintenance and Operations Rate is $0.7179, the Interest and Sinking Rate is $0.20 for a total rate of $0.9179 per $100 assessed value.
“The adoption of the tax rate of $0.9179 is effectively a 2% decrease in the tax rate,” the agenda stated.
The board reflected on past bonds and discussed planning and timeline for future bond plans.
The district partnered with VLK Architects to help prepare for the 2021 bond that voters passed.
A team from VLK spoke at the meeting to discuss the services they could provide by repartnering with the district for the next bond.
“If we start this journey again, and we have the same type of failure, not just not passing a bond, but the same type of failure in our community, we've lost all hope for not just this, … but for future bonds,” school board President Renee Polk said.
VLK Architects recommended bringing back a committee made up of residents, a mix of individuals who are for the bond and against, and ranging in demographics; school board members agreed.
“I really want to truly get a crosssection of the citizens and their feel of it,” trustee Craig Bickers said.
The committee would discuss costs, needs and other issues, using updated data to create a bond package, Senior Associate Dr. Lizzy Johnson explained.
“We want them focused on students and what we need to do for students,” Johnson said. “Because as you know, they're coming, they're here and they're not bringing schools in their backpacks. And so, we have to make sure we do our best from the very beginning up.”
VLK Director of Communications Adi Bryant also shared other recommendations the district can implement to prepare for a future bond, which included newsletters, a video series, new webpages detailing facility plans, tours to show faculty needs, and a Did You Know campaign that informs the community about district facts residents may not know.
Current enrollment is 1,839 as of Sept. 8.
“We continue to get new kids in, so we're growing,” Superintendent Dr. Shannon Fuller said.
Alicia Bonnett, assistant superintendent of curriculum and instruction, and Jaren Mercer, coordinator of federal programs and instructional support, discussed plans for raising the district’s score from a C to a B.
“We have our instructional ‘Four Big Rocks,’ which are our four instructional priorities across the district,” Mercer said. “And together, they make sure that we focus our work on strong collaboration with teachers, strong Tier 1 instruction, high expectations and supports for every student, and a coherent curriculum.”
The board approved the district plan and the campus improvement plan.
“The goal is that we have alignment from the district level all the way down to the classroom and teacher level so that everybody's working in the same direction,” Mercer said, and explained that each campus assessed its data to identify specific needs to target.
Pilot Point ISD Director of Human Resources Valerie Wall shared that substitute fill rates increased to 88% between August 2025 and May 2026, up from 79% in the 2024-25 academic year.
“The two things that we saw that [contributed] to that [were] the pay increase to be more competitive with our neighboring districts and then also making sure that we have a healthy pool of subs to pull from so that there's enough to fill vacancies,” Fuller said.
The middle school gym floors are expected to be repaired during Christmas break and completed in three weeks or less.
Repairs include “cutting out the damaged area, replacing the wood, sanding and refinishing the entire court,” said Casey Adam, assistant superintendent of administrative services and operations.
During closed session, the board unanimously approved the recommendation by the superintendent, “to send notice of the proposed mid-year termination and/or in the alternative end-of-year termination of the probationary contract and suspension without pay pending termination of April Howard for good cause,” as stated on the agenda.
The board also accepted the Texas School Safety Center Security Audit and the K9 Agreement.
