District of Innovation

Liberty-Eylau school board members begin process to attain designation

Trustees of Liberty-Eylau Independent School District took the first step Thursday to become a District of Innovation. Board members held a public hearing and passed a resolution to approve a district leadership team to explore and identify changes to be made with the designation.

Texas House Bill 1842, passed during the 2015 legislative session, amended Chapter 12 of the Texas Education Code, giving certain public schools many of the flexibilities of Texas’ open-enrollment charter schools. Those include giving districts exemptions on class size, length of the school day, teacher certifications and contracts. It would also give the district the ability to determine the first and last days of school. Currently, state law states that school cannot begin before the fourth Monday in August. Pleasant Grove ISD and Texarkana ISD have both begun the process to become Districts of Innovation, and each has identified changing the school start date as a point of consideration.

L-EISD’s Public Relations Coordinator Matt Fry said this is something the leadership

team will also consider, with a goal of coordinating all three district calendars as closely as possible.

Superintendent Ronnie Thompson said that once the team adopts the changes, the plan will then be brought back before the board.

“Under our timeline right now, we’re looking at bringing it back in March for approval of the board, so that means they’ll have a couple of months to look at it and meet and develop and discuss and talk about it,” he said. The team of 30 is comprised of parents, teachers, nonteaching professionals, school administrators and community representatives.

“There may be other individuals that participate in this committee, but this the voting committee that actually has to vote on it,” Thompson said. “There will be other participation obviously—teachers and principals to give us input and other things to look at.”

In other business, trustees voted to approve a guaranteed maximum price of $4,047,027 for their phase 1 construction project at the pre-K campus and CTE building at the high school. This is part of $20.8 million in bonds voters approved in May for district improvements. Buford Thompson Construction company is the project’s construction manager, and is responsible for hiring subcontractors for the project, which includes additions at both campuses.

Other projects included in the bond are a new roof at the middle school, a new building at the Primary School, and heating and air systems upgrades districtwide.