Crowley Independent School District

December 13, 2016

 

Crowley ISD Family,

 

We are embarking on a journey to help find new, innovative ways to meet Crowley ISD's mission of “providing students with excellence in education so that all students achieve their full potential.”

 

District of Innovation
You may have heard talk of Districts of Innovation across the state. This concept, passed by the 84^th Legislative Session in House Bill 1842, gives traditional independent school districts, like CISD, most of the flexibilities available to Texas’ open-enrollment charter schools. To access these flexibilities, a school district must adopt an innovation plan that is created by an advisory committee.

Our Board of Trustees has chosen to explore this opportunity to possibly become a District of Innovation. In a resolution passed by the School Board on December 1, Trustees voted unanimously on a resolution to initiate the process to consider becoming a District of Innovation.

What’s Next?
The next step is for the Board to hold a public hearing Thursday, December 15 at 6 p.m. at the CISD Central Administration Building.

At that meeting, Trustees will also have the opportunity to nominate educators and community members to serve on the District of Innovation Advisory Committee.

School Calendars
Many of our surrounding school districts are also going through this same process, so you will probably be hearing more and more about Districts of Innovation across North Texas.

One trend we are seeing in most districts is a change to the school start date. As you probably know, current state law mandates that public schools cannot start prior to the fourth Monday in August. This school year, that day fell on August 22. In 2017, that day falls on August 28. That is one week less of valuable instruction time in the fall semester. If we were to start school on August 28, that means students would have to stay as late as June 8, 2018 in order to meet the state requirement of at least 75,600 instructional minutes.

This calendar issue could possibly be resolved if the District of Innovation Advisory Committee and our School Board chooses to do so. But, this means the release of our 2017-18 school calendar may be delayed later than usual. Our goal is to release a school calendar that best meets Crowley ISD’s needs as soon as possible.   

Stay Updated
We want to be transparent and provide updates throughout this entire District of Innovation process. We’ve created a page on our website (www.crowleyisdtx.org/districtofinnovation) where you can see meeting dates, presentations and other resources.

If you have any questions or ideas, please let us know. Just email information@crowley.k12.tx.us.

 

Sincerely,

 

Dan Powell

Superintendent
Crowley ISD