Conroe ISD board members discussed the possibility of becoming a District of Innovation during an Oct. 18 board meeting.

Becoming a DOI would grant CISD more flexibility and local control on certain state statutes, such as start dates for the school year, class size, teacher certification and minutes of instruction, CISD Deputy Superintendent Curtis Null said. The DOI option was adopted during the 2015 state legislative session.

“The challenge that we’ve had is that the state is not real forthcoming with information,” Null said. “I think for that reason … we’ve been very conservative with what we would want to include [in our DOI designation]. There are some districts that have more items on the list than what we have, [such as] different class size and really getting out there as far as teacher certification or teacher contracts and pay. Those are not areas that we would entertain.”

The board voted to appoint members to the District Level Planning and Decision Making Committee, composed of elected parents, community members and teachers, to further investigate becoming a DOI.

“I think it sounds good, [but] I think it’s a real slippery slope,” CISD trustee Jessica Powell said. “It opens up to possible future issues when different boards, different opinions, different agendas start to come into play. I think there’s a lot of reason [for] this to still be considered a dangerous plan to adopt.”

It was suggested that teacher certification would be flexible only for career and technical education programs, Null said. Anyone hoping to teach a CTE-related course would need to be an expert in his or her field.

“I’m all for the more local control the better, and I do hope that our educators will continue to, through this process, provide us with that feedback so that we can really look at this to the level that we need to,” CISD board Secretary Melanie Bush said. “What works statewide doesn’t necessarily work in every district.”

Should CISD choose to instate a DOI plan, it can be changed, but the board must go through an approval process again, Null said. Regardless, the plan must be renewed every five years.

“As a general rule, I’m all for local control rather than a bunch of people that I don’t know deciding when I should start school,” CISD board President John Husbands said.

The DOI plan will be up for approval Dec. 13.