Sharman Reed has filed for Place 5 that is currently being filled by interim appointee James Kallison, who replaced Gail King when she resigned in August 2009; Dr. Colleen Jones filed opposite Place 6 incumbent Mike Monnig; and Place 7 incumbent Ellen Balthazar is unopposed for re-election.

Early voting runs from April 26-May 4 at Randalls, 3300 Bee Cave Road, from 7 a.m.-7 p.m. Monday-Saturday and Sunday from noon-6 p.m., or at any of the other early voting polling locations provided by Travis County.

The polling place on Election Day is Valley View Elementary School, 1201 Capital of Texas Highway.

EEF administrators are still tallying proceeds and expenses from the night, but say they expect net proceeds to be strong, despite a 20-percent reduction in the number of partygoers from last year. They attribute the decrease in participants to a sluggish economy and competition with several other community events.

“While our revenue was off its peak, we were able to cut our expenses and net more proceeds available to be granted to the Eanes school district,” said Jerri Ann Yznaga of EEF.

The foundation hopes to raise close to $1 million in support of the Eanes school district for the 2011-12 school year. EEF members have already raised more than $700,000 through their annual giving campaign. Board members and administrators are banking on Saturday’s gala to provide the remaining funds.

The district garnered local student bands the Loose Wheels and High on Hotdogs to play the event along with Austin band the Kopy Kats. Tyler Rhodes performed classical guitar at the entrance of the gala.

Those attending the event seemed in high spirits as they enjoyed dinner, wine, games, entertainment and the chance to participate in live and silent auctions. Local author and photographer Kirk Tuck was there with his wife, Belinda Yarritu. They attended with their friends, Matt and Anne Hagan.

“We have been longtime supporters of the EEF and were delighted with the outpouring of generosity displayed collectively and individually by Eanes parents,” Tuck said. “The quality of EISD is why we live in the area. The evening was great fun and a very effective way to raise funds for important teaching positions, which otherwise would have to be left unfilled. Events like these are full of energy and good spirits. This year was one of the best we’ve ever attended. We can hardly wait for next year.”

EEF executive director Wally Moore and his wife, Polly, were also at the event.

“We are extremely grateful to the community, grateful for their commitment to this high performing Eanes school district and their willingness to be a partner in educational excellence,” Moore said. “As we move toward our goal of funding 20 teachers in the 2010-2011 school year, the support we receive through our annual gala is crucial, bringing in one-fourth to one-third of our annual revenue. We look forward to reporting more good news as we continue to move through our fundraising year.”

Beginning in June this year and effective for the 2011 graduating class, the district will track class rank only for students in the top 10 percent academically of their graduating classes.

This will allow graduating seniors to know if they are eligible for the automatic acceptance into state universities guaranteed to Texas public school students who graduate in the top 10 percent of their classes.

“We feel the advantages of removing that ranking for the remaining 90 percent of students far outweighs any negative aspects,” said district Superintendent Nola Wellman.

Student grade point averages are so high at the district’s only high school that many students who earn high GPAs can wind up being ranked in the lower percentages of their graduating class said principal Linda Rawlings.

“Because of the caliber of the students and educational experience at Westlake, students in our third quarter may have a grade point average of 90 or higher,” Rawlings said.

Those “A” students can find themselves at a disadvantage when competing for admission in colleges and universities that consider class rank when accepting students. Many students with lower GPAs from other school districts often have higher rankings within their graduating classes. Comparing class rankings between districts is not comparing apples to apples, Rawlings said.

The district will have GPA and ranking information calculated for each student, and can supply or verify some ranking data on request from organizations for purposes of scholarships and grants.

“A grading system should be fair,” said board member James Kallison. “It should do three things: distinguish academic performance in a meaningful way, enhance college entry and (add third thing). The evidence seems compelling that what is proposed is a much better system in addressing those three criteria.”

By law, public schools in Texas have to assign a rank number to each student in the top 10 percent of their class, Rawlings said. There is no law requiring that Texas schools rank every student. The school board’s decision to limit class rank reporting came after months of study by a class rank committee that included students, parents and staff.

The event features a rockwall, super slide, gaming theater, jumps, games, cakewalk and unique items in the silent auction such as vacation-getaways, interior design services, family portraits, spa services, jewelry, summer camps, parties, dining, fitness packages, dental packages, country club packages, sports and celebrity items.

To preview the items, visit www.bcebc.dojiggy.com, and anyone can bid without attending.

Three seats are up for grabs in the Eanes school board election and in both Rollingwood and West Lake Hills city council elections.

In West Lake Hills, seats currently held by Mayor Dave Claunch, Place 2 Councilman Andrew Schwartz and Place 4 Councilwoman Cindy Probst will be decided. As of late Tuesday, only Claunch and Schwartz have filed for re-election, and Jean Goehring and former council members Katherine Loayza and Jane Noble have filed for candidacy to Place 4. Place 4 incumbent  Cindy Probst has indicated that she will not seek re-election.

Mayor Dale Dingley and Alderman Brian Nalle and Alderwoman Shanthi Jayakumar are up for re-election in Rollingwood. Dingley announced that he will not seek re-election, and no other candidates had filed as of Tuesday afternoon.

Nalle and Jayakumar will face all comers in an at-large election in which the top two vote-getters win, and the mayors race is a traditional head-to-head election. The filing place and polling place on Election Day is at City Hall, 403 Nixon Drive.

The Eanes school board meets on the fourth Wednesday of each month. The Rollingwood City Council meets every third Wednesday of the month at 7 p.m., while West Lake Hills Council members meet every second and fourth Wednesday at 7 p.m.

Interested candidates have until Monday to file for the election at his or her respective city halls. For more information, call the Rollingwood City Hall at 327-1838 or West Lake Hills City Hall at 327-3628.

In both cities, council seats are for two-year terms.

The Election Day polling place for both the West Lake Hills and Eanes school board elections is Valley View Elementary School.

In the Eanes school board election, places up for grabs are Place 6, currently held by Mike Monnig, and Place 7, currently held by Ellen Balthazar. Both are for three-year terms. A concurrent special election will also be held to fill the Place 5 seat vacated by Gail King last August. The seat is currently bing held by interim appointee James Kallison.

Only the incumbents have filed candidacy as of Tuesday afternoon.

Candidates file for the election at the Eanes administration building, 601 Camp Craft Road.

The deadline to file for candidacy is also Monday.

Teaming up with West Lake Hills-based Mobile Loaves & Fishes, every cheerleader from all three squads except one who was sick worked overtime on the project from 9 a.m. well into the afternoon Saturday at Wooldridge Square in downtown Austin.

“It was such a good experience, and I actually had a lot of fun,” varsity cheerleader junior Maddie Picone said. “I loved being able to cook for them and serve them. They were all so friendly and easy to get along with, and you could tell they really appreciated the meal from us. It felt really good to be able to help.”

Helping out at ML&F is nothing new to Picone. She has volunteered several times preparing food for distribution to the homeless from trucks departing from its home base on the grounds of St. John Neumann Catholic Church, but she pointed out this experience gave her added insight into the people she had helped from a distance.

“I think everyone was having fun, playing Frisbee and interacting with [the homeless people in attendance],” she said. “People were dying to flip the burgers and take my spot cooking. I think everyone had a great time.”

Freshman cheerleader Elizabeth Peterson, who has also helped out several times at ML&F kitchen in West Lake Hills and has even ridden on the trucks that deliver the food, said she was happy to share the experience with her peers.

“It was cool to see the smiles and hear the thank-yous,” she said. “They were so appreciative, and I think the majority of us really enjoyed it a lot. Some people have never done anything like this before, but everyone was having fun.”

Tami Bone, a longtime parent volunteer for the cheerleaders, suggested the idea and coordinated the effort because she knew that the interaction would be more meaningful than simply raising funds.

“The cheerleaders do a number of community service projects throughout the year but nothing like hands-on working with people in need,” she said. “I was lucky because the parent association was open to working out a plan.”

After getting approval from parent leadership board, she said it was then just a matter of getting direction and materials from ML&F founder Alan Graham to carry it out.

“I really wanted to take [the cheerleaders] out of their comfort zone,” Bone said. “I know a lot of the girls didn’t know what to expect. But I was pleased with their attitude. Everyone had a part in this, and everybody participated.”

Graham, who assisted along with several of the nonprofit’s volunteers that included his wife, Trisha, said he could not be more pleased with the result.

“We are a ministry that empowers people to serve, and we did everything we could have hoped to do on Saturday,” Graham said. “The feedback that I’m getting is very good – transformative is what I’d call it.”

Graham is referring to the fact that many of the cheerleaders came away feeling more empathetic toward homeless people.

“When you get out there and serve them, play Frisbee with them and all the things that were going on, you get a different perspective,” he said. “That’s where the power is. That’s what we do. That’s what we’re best at.”

Board member Clint Sayers voted against the terms of the addendum extending Wellman’s contract for five years to Dec. 31, 2014. The new contract, signed Feb. 26 and retroactive to Jan. 1, provides for a base salary of $231,063.95 and an increase of $10,000 to her tax-sheltered plan. Sayers said the $10,000 increase was intended to compensate the superintendent for travel expenses.

“I’ve got some issues with the additional $10,000 that Dr. Wellman has asked us to include in the contract over and above the normal 3 percent increase,” Sayers said. “My understanding is that that increase is to offset travel expenses that the district would normally be paying for Dr. Wellman.”

Sayers said he was not comfortable providing additional salary for expenses that should be covered as expense items. He said the change in the way the district covers Wellman’s expenses would be problematic in a number of ways.

“When it’s done that way, these expenses are now not subject to open records,” he said. “People can’t come out and find out where we are spending our travel money. I think that’s hiding the ball. I think that’s hiding where public money goes. I think the people have the right to know how their tax dollars are being spent.”

Transferring the reimbursement of travel expenses to salary also overstates the superintendent’s compensation package to the Texas Retirement System and results in higher retirement pay, Sayers said.

“I don’t think that TRS would consider this credible compensation when they have to do their retirement, because it’s basically an allowance for travel expenses,” he said.

Sayers said covering travel expenses as salary also worked as a disincentive for Wellman to travel.

“Now, she will have to pay for travel out of her own pocket,” he said. “It is also a problem for the district in times of cutting expenses. If we have to cut expenses, what do we do? Go back to Dr. Wellman and say, ‘we’re cutting travel. We need a reimbursement?’ I would just like to call it what it is and call it travel.”

Board members Ellen Balthazar, Robert Durkee, Paul Stone and Mike Monnig spoke in support of the contract revision.

“I think that this is consistent with other expenses like cell phones and car and that sort of thing, which are legitimate things to be involved in compensation,” Balthazar said. “We have documented records from history with what these expenses track through as. Nobody is making money pro or con.”

Balthazar said there was precedent in other districts for the payment of travel expense as a portion of salary and that the practice was legal.

“It’s something we should do in support of our superintendent,” she said.

“There are other ways for people to understand what goes on in this district – calendars, emails, etc,” said Paul Stone. “This was a reasonable request. It’s more efficient for administration.”

In addition to her base salary, Wellman also receives a $5,000 supplemental retirement contribution, reimbursement of taxes owed on TRS contributions, a separate $21,000 contribution to her tax sheltered plan and payment of life insurance premiums on a minimum $560,000 policy. Her benefits also include 10 vacation days, seven sick leave days and indemnification against lawsuits and reimbursement of attorneys’ fees incurred in any legal proceedings and administrative proceedings relating to her district duties.

Valley View parents Ian Ball, Scott Urdahl and Andrea Ramos said the area off of Cuernavaca Drive west of River Hills Road is one of the last areas in the district still growing. They say 496 new homes have been built in the area in the last 10 years. Those new homes sport an average appraised value of $800,000, adding a 40 percent increase to the tax base from the Valley View attendance zone, they said.

“We are focused on resolving three district issues,” Ball said. “We want to improve the safety of our young children being bused for such long periods of time each day. We want to make after-school programs more viable for our families, and we want to increase parent involvement at our school.”

Currently, students in the Valley View attendance zone are bused to the school, which is located an estimated six miles from the center of its residential base.

“The only option we see that solves all three of these issues is a new school on the River Hills tract,” Ball said. “That option would also provide some much-needed athletic facilities in the district.”

Ball said he and other parents are finding large community support for the idea within the Valley View attendance zone and quickly growing support in other areas of the district. He said that the district’s ability to continue to provide the kind of exemplary education it has become known for will depend on strong strategic planning to provide flexibility for quickly changing learning environments in the future.

“The days of lectures and note taking are over,” he said. “I don’t think anyone knows what learning will be like, even in the near future.”

He said the district will have to provide flexibility in classroom configuration and in adapting to changing attendance populations to stay ahead of the game.

“Locating elementary schools near students’ homes benefits everyone,” he added. “For our youngest students especially, eliminating lengthy commutes fosters student achievement, extracurricular participation, parent achievement and safety.”

He said that providing a neighborhood school and repurposing the Valley View campus sets off a domino-effect addressing a number of district concerns, including providing suitable permanent space for special student populations, adding needed administration space for instructional training, and freeing up Valley View gym and playground facilities for Forest Trail Elementary School students.

Lead photo by Donald R. Winslow, Art by Katie Rose Pipkin

By Dane Anderson, Staff Writer

Katie Rose Pipkin sat on the darkening porch at Flipnotics coffee house, bundled in a coat against the night air. Wisps of short, blond hair occasionally flicked straight upwards in a breeze and her wide eyes peered out over the top of her collar. She arrived wrapped in the confidence of a curious mind let loose in a colorful world. She was 19, but she wasn’t. She seemed a lot older.

Back from a year of exploring and summer sojourns at the Academy of Art in San Francisco and the Paris American Academy courtesy of a coveted Young Masters grant from the Texas Commission of the Arts, the 2008 Westlake High School graduate is now studying art at the University of Texas. She’s at an interesting point in her life, a moment when remarkable talent meets with all the possibilities of higher education, a point where innocence and wisdom collide.

“As an artist, you are always trying to relate to other people through something you share,” she said. “You’re always reaching out, trying to illustrate something better, explain something about our human life. We are always trying to capture those moments and situations that take us out of the every day and put those feelings on canvas.”

Pipkin doesn’t like to be called a prodigy, but that’s exactly what her classmates and teachers at Westlake considered her to be – a powerful combination of raw talents that came out in her drawings, paintings, photography and sculpture.

“There are so many attributes that make Katie extraordinary,” said Dale Baker, her former Westlake art teacher. “I was looking through a folder the other day that contained some of her digital work when she was here, and I was taken aback by the sheer number of quality pieces of art – 53 of them. Her work ethic and productivity set her apart, but it’s her talent that makes her an exceptional artist. She makes it look so easy.”

Pipkin won accolades as an all-state artist from her sophomore year forward in high school. She’s won so many awards, in fact, that nobody bothers to keep up with them anymore. Awards don’t impress her as much as seeing her work up on display in galleries, coffee shops and homes. She considers the list of galleries that have shown her work more important than any list of awards she’s received.

“Awards are great,” she said. “But it’s another thing entirely when your work is on the wall. We keep our deepest thoughts to ourselves, where they’re safe. It takes someone brave to take things truly important to them and put them out there.”

Even within the limitations of a Web site viewing of her work, Katie’s pieces are fascinating and addicting. People look and they want more. That list of galleries where her work has been exhibited is growing rapidly.

“People seem to feel their own personal connection to her work,” said her father, Turk Pipkin, author and filmmaker. “That’s rare. It’s something writers, musicians and all kinds of artists can spend their whole life trying to achieve.”

The younger Pipkin admits to being driven by nature. She used to spend a lot of time worrying about what would and wouldn’t happen and what her future would hold.

“If I didn’t paint, I would go absolutely crazy,” she said. “Everybody has something like that. Something that keeps us sane. For some people it’s model trains. I have to create. There’s no choice.”

Now tucked away in the relative anonymity of UT art school, Pipkin is relaxing in the luxury of being 19, full of ideas and in college. In art school, everyone is talented. Everyone is free to pursue interests.

“I enjoy learning; public school almost destroyed that for me,” she said. “Learning is so damned fun. People forget that. The more you learn about the world, the better you can interpret it. As an artist, that’s your goal. You want to see that light. To be in an environment where that is the only goal is pretty powerful.”

What will Katie Rose Pipkin bring to the world? We’ve yet to find that out. For now, the young, talented artist is content to sit back for a bit and see what happens. She looks for color and experience in everyday living. She takes joy in grocery shopping and finding blueberries on sale.

“You have to allow yourself a certain amount of delight, or there’s just no point really,” she said. “If you don’t allow yourself that, you go mad.”

To get a peek at the world of Katie Pipkin, visit her online at tattooedshoes.com.

Artwork by Katie Rose Pipkin

“Our students were able to interact with people from a different culture, which showed them that there are some differences, but, although half way around the world, Korean teenagers are basically the same as American teenagers,” said Allegra Hobbs, the Westlake AP calculus teacher who traveled to Korea with the students. “They also tried many new foods and visited a number of Korean landmarks.”

Westlake juniors Hailey Thompson and Sean Brocklehurst were part of the group of students to travel to South Korea, the first group of local high school students to take part in the new exchange program. They earned the privilege of visiting the foreign high school with Hobbs by writing an essay about how they thought they could benefit from the trip. They stayed in the Global Leadership Program campus, which houses approximately 40 Korean boarding students, all of whom speak English and plan on attending U.S. universities. Both Thompson and Brocklehurst said they were surprised by the ease with which they could communicate with their Korean counterparts and the welcoming and supportive environment they found at the GLP campus.

“It was basically a big home school with 40 kids in it,” Brocklehurst said.

He said he was intrigued by how centralized the cities he visited in Korea were, and how vertically well designed they were.

“In a building, you have a department store, then the floor below is a grocery store and the floor below that is a bus station,” he said.

Thompson said the trip has given her more confidence, confidence she said will come in handy as she heads off to college in two years.

“I am more comfortable communicating with people,” she said. “And I think I have a better feel for how foreign visitors feel when they come here. It’s harder for them though, because hardly anyone in this country speaks other languages fluently.”

Both Brocklehurst and Thompson said one of the strangest cultural differences in Korea was the societal focus on shoes and rules about shoes. They said they had to remove their shoes any time they entered a room. To make the process easier, many Koreans, even professionals, often go about their days clad in slippers.

“You see all these people in really nice tailored, expensive suits, and they have bunny slippers on their feet,” Brocklehurst said.

Both Westlake students have already set up links with their new friends in Asia through Facebook and other social networks. They plan to stay in touch. Thompson, who is thinking of studying forensic psychology in college, said the travel experience made her realize she would like to study abroad for part of her university years. Brocklehurst, who plans on studying engineering after high school graduation, said he probably will not study abroad, but he now realizes he would like to make sure travel becomes a regular part of his life in the future.

“I feel like people who didn’t try to join this exchange program don’t have any idea what they missed,” Thompson said. “Everyone asks me what it was like, and all I can say is that it was amazing. I just don’t know how else to describe it.”