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LISD discusses student privacy, flexible school program, ninth grade campuses
By Chris Roark, croark@starlocalnews.com
The Lewisville ISD Board of Trustees received an update Monday on several upcoming projects and initiatives, including student privacy.
The board discussed a policy change regarding student information that is available in school directories.
Currently, any student whose parents sign a media waiver will have information such as their name, phone number, address, email address and honors received printed in the directory. However, by law, any organization that files an open records request can obtain that information for marketing purposes.
For school-sponsored purposes, the available information will be: name, address, honors, dates of attendance, grade level, most recent school attended, participation in officially recognized activities and sports and height and weight of athletic team members.
For other purposes, only the name, honors and participation in officially recognized activities and sports will be available.
“We feel like this is a safety issue for the students,” said district spokeswoman Karen Permetti. “So this is crafted in such a way that we can work with other entities, but marketing companies can’t get the students’ addresses or phone numbers.”
Permetti added that she is aware of other districts across the state proposing the same policy change.
In other business, Dr. Charles Fruge, director of development and evaluation, reviewed the district’s Optional Flexible School Day Program as part of a public hearing, which is required before the district can submit an application to continue the program in 2012-13.
The purpose of the program, which is taught Mondays through Thursdays at the Lewisville Learning Center, is to allow more students to graduate high school. Students who are eligible are those who are considered at-risk of dropping out of high school, including those who already have, who attend a campus implementing an innovative design or who attend an approved early college high school program.
Some of the highlights of the program include: 394 students were served this school year, surpassing the goal of 200; 524 credits were earned; 46 students graduated, including 19 dropouts; and 22 dropouts were promoted to the next grade level or accrued enough credits to advance.
The board was also briefed on Texas Association of School Boards (TASB) Update 93. The update addresses early mental health intervention and suicide prevention programs.
Among the components is a policy districts can approve, such as establishing a procedure for notifying parents of a student who has been identified as being in need of early mental health intervention and suicide prevention.
Another component of the update clarifies the definition of the term “bullying,” including engaging in expression through electronic means.
The policy also outlines appropriate district actions based on the type of bullying that took place.
New options for a district transfer are included for both the aggressor and/or victim of bullying, a policy districts can adopt.
Also at the meeting, board members discussed the decision on whether to submit an application to participate in the Texas High Performance Schools Consortium.
The consortium is a group of up to 20 districts and open-enrollment charter schools charged with informing the governor, legislature and commissioner of education concerning methods for transforming public schools through the development of innovative, next-generation learning standards, assessment, and accountability systems, according to the Texas Education Agency’s website.
Four principles will be addressed: digital learning, learning standards, multiple assessments and local control.
Waddell said the consortium is in alignment with LISD’s strategic design process.
He added that some considerations include which parts of the district, if not all, are included in the consortium. He said the campuses involved would be intensely working with other districts across the state.
LISD would be the largest district in the consortium, if accepted.
Trustees said they were on board with going through the application process.
“There is a lot of eagerness from the community, and they are hungry for this,” board member Julie Foughty said. “It’s a great opportunity, if we’re accepted. The state needs to show diverse representation, and we can offer that.”
The board also got its first glimpse of the possible plan for the ninth grade centers.
The campuses are part of the bond package voters approved in 2008.
Irene Nigaglioni and Richard Chi of PBK Architects presented the schematic design for each of the facilities.
Nigaglioni said the many of the ideas for the campuses came from the charette committees consisting of parents, teachers, staff members and students.
In fact, some students took photos of various locations at their current schools where they feel like they learn the best and submitted those as part of the process.
The Marcus ninth grade campus is proposed to be located just south of the main campus, and though it will be its own facility with a separate drop-off area, it will be attached by a renovated hallway.
The ninth grade center at Flower Mound is proposed to be attached to the northwest corner of the main building.
Both buildings were originally set to be off-site campuses.
One idea that came from the charettes was a serpentine hallway that creates a “learning hub” with various learning studios. Each studio will have classrooms, a collaboration area and administration offices. This would be the same format for both levels of the two-story campus.
“It allows for the creation of small areas for small group instruction, individual learning or groups of two, five or 10 students to work together,” Nigaglioni said. “So rather than using the hallway other than just for circulation, we’d be using it for more than that. That’s why the size of the main hallway would be larger than the standard hallway you would see in the other building.”
Other components include a lecture hall, a media center and a cyber café.
Also at the meeting, the board named Jeffrey Kajs as principal of Lewisville High School and Tim Greenwell as principal at Liberty Elementary School.
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