During the CFISD board of trustee work session on September 9, CFISD will undergo the process to become a District of Innovation.

The district of innovation concept was passed in 2015 when the 84th Texas Legislature created Texas Education Code chapter 12 A, DOI, which allows traditional school districts to access most of the flexibility available to Texas open enrollment charter schools.To access these flexibilities according to tasb.org, a school district must adopt an innovation plan,as set forth in Chapter 12 A of Texas Education Agency (TEA) rules. Dr. Linda Macias,Associate Superintendent and Chief Academic Officer for CFISD, addressed to the CFISD board of trustees during the work session on September 5.

“The plans that are a part of DOI for a district are very unique,” she said in the work session. “They’re not the same district to district because it’s really all dependent on what the district’s goals are”.

Dr. Macias said about 1030 school districts in Texas and 865 of them are designated at districts of innovation which equals to about 84%.

“The ability to be designated and the local control that comes with that districts are able to pursue innovation,” she said. “An example might be with class size. Principals can make decisions about what is the best class size for a group of students.”

Exemptions from the Texas Education Code would allow the district to change the school calendar, student-teacher ratio, minutes of seat time, budgeting, teacher benefits such as duty-free lunch and planning times.

You can find more information on the CFISD work session from September 5 at cfisd.net.