"Districts of Innovation" (DOI) were born in 2015 with HB1842 and can be found in Texas Education Code Chapter 12A DISTRICTS OF INNOVATION. Canyon ISD is in the process of renewing their DOI status. The proposed plan can be found on the district website and a copy is also available below (uploaded 10/26/2022).
Concerns
The following questions were submitted on 10/26/2022 to the district about the plan (with no response):
Can you please list every classroom (campus/teacher) that exceeded 22 students in preK-4th from fall 2016 through spring 2022?
Who is on the committee to develop a local innovation plan?
Are there educators from each campus on the committee?
What is the district employee to parent ratio of the committee?
Who selected the members of the committee?
Was the plan presented to educators for discussion and feedback?
When is the district-level committee holding a public meeting?
Has Canyon ISD done everything possible to communicate the DOI committee members and the public meeting date to the community? Does this include posting on social media channels?
Why is the Canyon ISD DOI Plan a full 5 years? Are there not some items that could be re-evaluated in say 2 years?
Why does Canyon ISD believe it is acceptable to hire non-certified educators?
Why does Canyon ISD believe it is acceptable to NOT notify parents when non-certified educators are in the classroom?
How many teachers are certified under the "District Teaching Permit" or are locally certified right now in CISD?
Why does Canyon ISD believe it is acceptable to exceed the 22:1 ratio in preK-4?
Why does Canyon ISD believe it is acceptable to NOT notify parents in the district when their child's classroom exceeds the 22:1 ratio in preK-4?
Why does Canyon ISD believe it has the right to not allow a student to transfer OUT of the district?
Your plan states, "Transfers will not be allowed into a campus if it will increase the ratio
over 22:1." Wouldn't transfer requests be best handled based on student criteria and not on blanket classroom size limits? I think if you had 3 classrooms each with a 22:1 ratio that the district would welcome a transfer so that we could justify a 4th teacher which would dramatically lower ratios which allows for increased student attention and less stress on our educators. This is excellence, no?
In light of the numerous brutal fights, gun threats, and violations of the district code of conduct, why does CISD believe that we do not need a Campus Behavior Coordinator, but, instead, to divide the responsibility amongst multiple administrators and push students to "effectively monitor their own behavior in the future"?
Please explain the "local teacher certification" process?
There are numerous items in the CISD Innovation Plan that technically are not illegal, but does Canyon ISD believe that exempting themselves from these laws is what the 2015 bill (HB1842 in 84r, I believe) was originally intended to do or achieve for local school districts?
Does the Canyon ISD administration and board feel that the proposed innovation plan is ethical?
Has Canyon ISD done an anonymous survey and asked educators:
1- do they like like that CISD is hiring non-certified teachers?
2- is it making their jobs more or less difficult (having non-certified teachers)?
3- do educators feel parents have a right to know if a non-state certified teacher is in the classroom?
4- do educators feel like they and/or the district are somehow involved in violating parental authority by not notifying parents?
5- do educators like teaching in classrooms with more than 22 children?
6- do educators feel like parents have a right to know if their child is in a classroom with more than the state-mandated limit of 22 children to 1 teacher?
7- do educators feel like they and/or the district are somehow involved in violating parental authority by not notifying parents?
8 - would educators prefer we had one individual in charge of campus behavior issues?
After reviewing other district innovation plans, we see that other plans include...
a) a timeline of district events
b) committee members
c) committee meeting dates
d) DOI term start and end date (full month/day/year for both)
e) in general, more robust information about the plan and district goals
An example of timeline would include:
-Board holds public hearing to discuss possibility of pursuing District of
Innovation Plan
Board takes action to pursue District of Innovation Plan
Board approves District of Innovation Committee members
-District posts Innovation Committee public meeting date/time
-District of Innovation Committee develops draft plan
-District Advisory Committee votes and approves the final plan in a public
meeting.
-Innovation plan posted for public view/Board notifies Commissioner of intent to
vote on Plan
-Board votes on District of Innovation plan
-District post final plan to website
Looking forward to your response.
You may also submit your comments and/or concerns via the link at the top right hand of the CISD Innovation page.
Please note, there is another Canyon ISD DOI page that comes up that does NOT have the comment and concerns link so it can be confusing.
Again, the above questions were submitted on 09/26/2022 to the district about the innovation plan.
Timeline
On Monday, October 10th, 2022, we notified a board member of my submission of the DOI form on the Canyon ISD website.
On Friday, October 14th, 2022, we had not received a phone call, email, or any type of communication from the district so the information (questions from original google form submission on 10/10/22) were forwarded to all Canyon ISD board members via email including Daryl Flusche.
On Saturday, October 15th 2022, I checked the DOI google form page and it no longer exists so the district removed it. There has not been any communication from Canyon ISD to my knowledge.
This page is being published on 10/15/2022.
Conclusion
The desired outcome is to resolve several concerns surrounding parental rights being suppressed prior to final DOI plan approval.
Canyon Independent School District (CISD) is in Region 16 of Texas and covers the Amarillo and Canyon, TX, areas in the Texas Panhandle. CISD is under the superintendent supervision of Dr. Daryl Flusche.
Also, see "Canyon ISD STAAR Results 2021-2022".
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