MERCEDES — You’ll never step foot on South Texas Independent School District’s seventh campus.
Although the district’s existing schools will return to 100% in-person learning next year, the new stand-alone campus will open completely online in the fall of 2021.
To reiterate, while other districts prepare to transition back to fully in-person curriculums, STISD is doubling down on online learning, for students who want it.
Superintendent Marco Antonio Lara says there are students who prefer doing their learning away from school — about one in five, in his estimation.
While many Rio Grande Valley district’s saw grades fall during 2020-2021, Lara says some students — particularly structured, self-reliant ones — defied the trend.
“We learned during the pandemic that this wasn’t for every student,” he said. “That this was not the setting for everybody to be able to excel at learning, but there were some students that really did. And so we’re focused on those students, providing them the opportunity to continue in a virtual setting.”
Lara says although the district noticed those students during the pandemic, a handful of schools in other parts of the state already operate totally online and that he’s been eying the advantages of online learning for a couple of years.
The campus will ultimately serve students from sixth through 12th grade, although the initial enrollment will only go up to ninth grade.
“It’s really a three-pronged process,” Lara said. “One is getting our teachers ready and prepared to deliver quality instruction, second is teaching our principals and administrators how to monitor our online program, and three is of course providing the right setting for our students.”
The district is aiming to fill that first cohort with 200 students. Enrollment opened on the first of the month, and although Lara says demand hasn’t been high so far, he expects it to grow significantly after an advertising campaign slated to launch this week.
Lara says students at the campus will have the opportunity to participate in in-person extracurriculars if they choose to, and that the campus is a continuation of the district’s tradition of choice and innovation.
“There was a lot of excitement actually,” he said “Our board was very excited.”
