By LYNETTE HAALAND, Four Points News

Student absences in the days surrounding Winter Break cost the Leander ISD $196,844. Absences in the Four Points schools alone made up $56,257 of the district’s total.

Winter Break ran Monday, Feb. 3 through Wednesday, Feb. 5. During that time, LISD teachers have a professional development conference, while students are off. Some LISD families refer to this break as “ski week,” and for others, it is a popular time to take big trips.

Like in years past, the trend continued this year with a high number of student absences surrounding Winter Break.

“The high absences are a concern to all of the board members. We have spoke about it in open session several times,” said Pam Waggoner, LISD board president.

Pam Waggoner, Leander ISD School Board President

“We want our families to enjoy their time-off, but we want our parents to set an example for their children that school is important and vacation can wait,” Waggoner said.

Thursday night at the school board meeting, the 2014-2015 calendar was changed from a three-day Winter Break to a two-day Winter Break. Next year, the LISD staff development time will be condensed to two staff development days and students will be off two days.

“We’ve looked at the calendar and made adjustments based on community feedback to maximize student instruction time,” said LISD spokesperson Veronica Sopher.

“We have eliminated one day from February conference in hopes that those who take the week off in February will think twice about missing three consecutive days of school,” Waggoner said.

“If parents don’t prioritize education, we cannot expect our students to,” Waggoner added.

                                  Absences around 2014 Winter Break

Leander ISD students  35,281  

Absences:  Average 1,286   Friday Jan. 31  1,729    Thursday, Feb. 6   3,509

Four Points area students   7,453

Absences:  Average 239   Friday Jan. 31  504    Thursday, Feb. 6    993

All data reported as of March 24, 2014 by Leander ISD.

Four Points absences add up

This school year, the average number of absences on a given day is 239 out of the 7,453 students who attend Steiner Ranch, Laura W. Bush, River Ridge, River Place and Grandview Hills elementary schools, Canyon Ridge and Four Points middle schools and Vandegrift High School.

Unexcused absences surrounding Winter Break are significantly higher.

Twice as many Four Points area LISD students, or 504, were absent than average on the Friday before Winter Break, more than four times as many, or 993, were absent on the Thursday following Winter Break. School was cancelled this year on the Friday following Winter Break due to bad weather.

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By CASSIE MCKEE, Four Points News

A Four Points property owner has been gathering signatures to protest a rezoning request from Foundation Communities to build a new 124-unit affordable housing apartment complex at 11108 Zimmerman Ln. The land is near Rudy’s Country Store and BBQ and currently zoned as single-family residential.

Foundation Communities is an Austin-based, non-profit organization that currently manages 10 affordable housing communities throughout Austin. The communities are for individuals and families with low to moderate incomes​—​ 50 to 80 percent of Austin median family income. Foundation Communities has one apartment complex under construction in downtown Austin and another planned in South Austin. If approved, the Four Points property would be their first in northwest Austin.

Four Points Against More Traffic

Marc Chase

River Place resident Marc Chase has started an effort called Four Points Against More Traffic. He has collected 350 signatures from local residents who are opposed to the rezoning request and is hoping to get at least 1,000 signatures. The zoning case is set to go before the Austin City Council in May.

Chase, who owns a development company called Kailey Development Partners LP, admits that he has a financial stake in the issue ​—​ he owns nine single-family lots across from the proposed site on Zimmerman Lane, which he hopes to develop and sell. Four of the nine homes are completed and are all listed for at least $400,000. But Chase says his concerns with the project are bigger than his own personal interests.

Kailey Development Partners LP has nine single-family lots across from the proposed Foundation Communities site on Zimmerman Lane.

“This particular project would add an additional 124 units, along with additional vehicles, pulling out onto RM 620 without any traffic signal light,” Chase said. “Zimmerman Lane is very narrow and cannot accommodate the additional traffic, not to mention the vehicles that will have to travel up and down this roadway during construction.”

Chase also has concerns about the overcrowding of Four Points schools.

“More and more apartments have been popping up in a very congested area of Four Points,” he said. “There’s no plan for how to relieve this pressure.”

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By CASSIE MCKEE, Four Points News

After working in the restaurant industry for many years, local residents David Cantu and Ray Pawlikowski saw a need for a technology platform that would help with one of the most tedious jobs of the restaurant industry — shift scheduling. That idea has led to the development of a thriving international company with nearly 500 employees.

David Cantu

As a manager at P.F. Chang’s in Austin in the late 90s, Cantu said he spent four hours a week creating a schedule for 65 employees. It was during that time that he met Pawlikowski, who he hired as a bartender at the restaurant. Cantu remembers Pawlikowski continually calling to find out his work schedule for the week. At that time, employees had to drive to the restaurant each week and write down their schedules.

Pawlikowski saw an opportunity to make the process more efficient by creating a website specifically to post staff schedules. Each week, Cantu would email him the new schedules.

“I’d email him, he’d post it on his website and when staff called we’d give them the web address,” Cantu said.

Even that process soon became overwhelming, though, as there were times when Pawlikowski got backed up and couldn’t post the schedule on time, meaning he was the one  receiving all the phone calls. He then had a different idea.

Ray Pawlikowski

“He came to me and asked if I was interested in starting a business with him focusing on the scheduling,” Cantu said. “I said no way, but I’d be happy to help.”

The idea lingered though and Cantu said he began to think of other restaurant processes that could be made more efficient. Though he didn’t have a tech background, Cantu decided he was in. So in 1999, the two wrote their first business plan.

“It was focused on delivering technology to the restaurant industry because at that time there was a void,” Cantu said. “There were a lot of point-of-sale companies that provided software but it was clunky software that wasn’t really built for restaurateurs.”

They named their product HotSchedules and launched it in 2000 at P.F. Chang’s. Within three to four months, 15 restaurants were using it. Austin-based Iron Cactus was one of their first customers. The continued to grow with the help of investors and within four or five years, 50 restaurants were using the HotSchedules software. Continue reading →

By CASSIE MCKEE, Four Points News

Construction on Water Treatment Plant 4 in Four Points is more than 85 percent complete and on schedule to be finished by this summer, according to Bill Stauber, supervising engineer with Austin Water.

“We’re transitioning into the startup of equipment and startup of systems and making sure everything’s working,” Stauber said. “We’re moving into the testing and startup phase.”

Photo taken in March by Austin Water.

Once construction is complete around July, engineers will begin testing all the plant’s equipment and systems, which means it may be sometime before the plant is fully operational.

“The plant has a lot of moving parts,” said Jason Hill, senior public information officer with Austin Water. “It’s not like you just turn the lights on. It can take a little bit of time after that to be fully operational.”

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The Hill Country Education Foundation raised $21,800 during the Fund-A-Need portion of the 4th Annual Giddy Up Gala in February. The entire gala raised a total of $113,875.

“This was by far HCEF’s most successful Fund-A-Need,” said Kai Lamb, HCEF president. “The reason is that donors understand the multiplier effect these funds have on the school, benefiting all current and future Vandegrift students.”

HCEF presented the $21,800 check to Vandegrift High School’s principal Charlie Little to be used for three programs: Preliminary Scholastic Aptitude Test or PSAT, academic University Interscholastic League competitions, and teacher professional development.

The Hill Country Education Foundation’s Gala event chair Myra Roberts (far left) and board member Mary Scherer presented a $21,800 check to Vandegrift High School principal Charlie Little.

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