HAYS COUNTY, Texas - Hays Consolidated Independent School District has released the draft for its District of Innovation plan.
If approved, this designation would allow the district to exempt from certain sections of the Texas Education Code. The District of Innovation concept, passed by the 84th Texas Legislature, gives traditional independent school districts some of the flexibilities available to Texas’ open-enrollment charter schools.
"We're on the back end of this," superintendent Eric Wright said. "There are over 700 districts in the state of Texas that are already Districts of Innovation."
In the plan, the district is looking to start the school year earlier, in August. Under the TEC, "a school district may not begin instruction for students for a school year before the fourth Monday in August."
"We wanted a waiver for the first day of instruction so that we could balance out our instructional days for the fall and spring semester," Wright said.
Lehman High Career and Technical education teacher Joe Henderson said more breaks dispersed through the year would be beneficial to the students.
"Those longer periods are harder to control students, they tend to be a little fresher, a little more on task if we've got shorter periods," Henderson said.
The second exemption would allow the district to waive teacher certification requirements for some CTE instructors in the event the district is unable to staff a certified teacher.
"The pool is limited for us and so by having that particular certification waiver, that expands the opportunities for us to hire people that have quality experience," Wright said.
Henderson said teacher training is necessary to succeed in the classroom.
"I think there's a lot of classroom management, a lot of the daily minutia that we have as teachers that if you just come straight in from industry, it's going to be an uphill battle to start with," Henderson said.
The draft states there will be required training, as the district will "outline required professional development in the areas of student management, instructional strategies, curriculum, and parent engagement."
"I think they still need to at least get some pedagogy classes to help them understand how to teach. Just because you understand your field, just because you're great at what you do doesn't necessarily mean you can share that experience, that knowledge with students," Henderson said.
Wright said the draft is only for those two modifications, and there's no ability to alter them once exemptions are approved by the Texas Education Agency.
"That's one of the greatest myths that is out in the community is that we can arbitrarily add anything. You can't," Wright said. "There's a defined process that we have to go through. So if we want to take something off or if we want to amend this plan, we have to start from ground zero and then work all the way through the process again."
There will be a public hearing on November 27 before approval in mid-December.
"Two-thirds majority of the [parent- and teacher-appointed] committee will have to recommend the plan to the board and then two-thirds of the majority of the board will have to recommend the plan in order for it to be approved," Wright said.
You can go to www.hayscisd.net/doi to learn more or submit comments to the district.