Superintendent shares goals, security measures for new school year
(Marion) — It’s back to hitting the books in the Marion ISD. Marion ISD students are latest batch of students in Guadalupe County to be returning to class for the 2022-2023 school year.
Photo courtesy Marion ISD Facebook
Marion ISD superintendent Dr. Don Beck who came on board at the tail end of last year says he looks forward to a more normal start.
“It was great to see the kids back in place, seeing them out in the football field, seeing them in the volleyball courts just the energy that is back from band. It’s just a good time of the year and we are looking forward to Tuesday when kids come back and everything that we have been planning for is for this day. I hate to use excited a lot, but it is an exciting time of the year because we are in this business for the children and when they come back, we will see the smiles on their faces and it will just make our day. It is a much different school year this year than it has been in the past year of operation,” said Dr. Beck.
Dr. Beck says he is proud of the work that has occurred in the Marion ISD and looks forward to continuing the tradition.
“I’m just hoping to have a great year this year. All of our principals have brought a lot of energy and excitement for the things that they have planned for our students and I’m looking forward to watching these kids perform to whatever it is. Like I said, we are in this business for the children. We have a group of kids that are going to nationals in FFA in October, that part of it is all about kids. Everything that we do should be with that lens. Our goal is to continue to grow. Our theme this year was Top Dog, and the slogan goes ‘The Best of the Best’ and so in order to be the best, you have to do the little things and that’s what we are doing this year is trying to figure out what are those little things that we need to work on to have our students succeed and excel,” said Dr. Beck.
He says keeping students and staff safe, of course, is at the forefront of this year’s operation. He says enforcing those security measures will remain priority.
Photo courtesy Marion ISD Facebook
“The plans are already moving in the right direction. One thing that we are going to be doing is we have an extra SRO that we’ve added to our district. We used to have one but now we have three people here at all times. That’s one measure that has been put into place. One of the things that we had to do was check the doors, do the door audits. We repaired any doors that needed to be repaired. We are looking at upgrading our vestibules and having some different procedures there as people enter the main office area. Those are probably the biggest items and we put up some new fences and changed some of our fences to obstruct some areas here and there,” said Dr. Beck.
Seguin ISD students began their school year on Monday, along with students at Lifegate Christian School and at Southwest Preparatory Academy. St. James Catholic School students were some of the first to go back to school, with their classes beginning last week.
Wednesday marks the first day of school for all Navarro ISD students. Wednesday is also marks the return for all Seguin ISD’s pre-K students attending Ball early childhood center.