The Donna Independent School District took another step earlier this month toward becoming a district of innovation, a status that would give it flexibility regarding local controls more in line with an open-enrollment charter school.
On Sept. 13, the district’s board of trustees held a public hearing on the proposal, a step that allows it to move forward with committee meetings over the next three months.
The board could vote to approve the plan as soon as February.
Donna ISD’s district of innovation plan proposes two areas where the district wants some more flexibility: start date and the 90% attendance rule.
Approving the plan would give the district the option to begin the school year before the fourth week in August, Superintendent Angela Dominguez told trustees earlier this month.
“This would give us flexibility around the start and end date of the school year,” she said. “With state assessments moving up — rapidly — and instructional needs of our students, we’d like a little flexibility around the calendar for the school year. So this would give the school district flexibility in that area.”
The district also wants more flexibility regarding a statewide rule that requires a student to be in class 90% of the time to get credit for that class, which means that even students performing well in a class despite missing about 18 days can no longer receive credit for that class.
“This specifically would allow us to look at students who are currently being penalized because of class time out due to extracurricular/co-curricular,” Dominguez said. “It would allow us to increase the number of qualifying graduates, and teachers would still decide the final grade for these students. So it would allow some flexibility with regard to that.”
According to the district, a little over half of the non-charter schools that make up Region 1 are districts of innovation. If approved, the district of innovation plan could be submitted to the Texas Education Agency in March.
“You’ll notice that this process is pretty lengthy,” Dominguez said. “There are a lot of steps to submitting this proposal to the commissioner and to TEA, so we’re taking this process over the course of the next school year.”
District of innovation pushes at local school districts have not all gone smoothly.
Five years ago the Edinburg CISD Board of Trustees voted to not implement an administration-proposed district of innovation plan after significant controversy and pushback from employees.
No one spoke at the hearing for Donna’s district of innovation plan and the idea doesn’t appear to be facing any significant resistance as of yet.
