Leander ISD shares zoning timeline for Elementary School No. 30
What’s happening?
LISD Chief Operations Officer Jimmy Disler presented the proposed process and timeline for zoning the district’s 30th elementary campus, which is opening in 2024, at an Oct. 5 board of trustees meeting.
If approved by the board Oct. 26, the district is expected to release a zoning scenario to the community Oct. 27 informed by new data from its demographer. Attendance zones would be finalized in December following a vote from the board, Disler said.
Leander ISD officials consider opening early childhood center to address growth
What’s happening?
District officials presented a recommendation from the Long-Range Planning Committee to build an early childhood center to relieve overcapacity in the district’s northern elementary schools at a Sept. 21 meeting. The $60 million center would open at a district-owned site off Halsey Drive for the 2025-26 school year, LISD Superintendent Bruce Gearing said.
The plan would also allow the district to consider repurposing two of its underutilized elementary campuses in Cedar Park to serve as new locations for the Leander Extended Opportunity Center and New Hope High School. The old LEO Center could then be repurposed into a second early childhood center.
The update
The proposal will now be considered by the district’s Bond Oversight Committee as it was not explicitly covered in 2023 bond language, Gearing said. The board of trustees will vote on whether to move forward with the plan at an Oct. 26 meeting, LISD Chief Communications Officer Crestina Hardie said.
Leander ISD joins lawsuit against TEA over new accountability rating system
What happened
In September, the district joined a lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency after it proposed retroactively applying new accountability rules in a way that would lower some districts' A-F ratings despite student performance improving.
While Leander ISD would maintain a B rating, almost 20% of campuses would receive a lower letter grade when applying the new system to data from the 2021-22 school year, said Brenda Cruz, LISD director of assessment and academic measures, at a Sept. 7 board meeting.
Stay tuned
Amid the litigation, the TEA announced Sept. 12 it will delay the release of this year’s ratings, which were scheduled to go out Sept. 28, by around a month to allow the agency to re-evaluate what baseline data it uses to measure school progress.
