Round Rock ISD held its last regularly scheduled school board meeting prior to the start of the school year Thursday night. Here are 4 takeaways from the meeting.
1. Stuart Selvaggi was officially sworn in as Place 6 trustee
After an interview process that lasted four hours Monday night,
Stuart Selvaggi was officially welcomed into office as the replacement for former trustee Paul Tisch. Tisch vacated his office in May before moving to College Station for a job with Texas A&M University System.
Selvaggi is a graduate of Westwood High School and has three children enrolled in the district. At Thursday night's meeting, Selvaggi reflected on his time in the district as both a student and parent and expressed excitement for his one-year term to come.
2. All of RRISD's schools received passing grades from state accountability standards
After the 2016-17 school year, the Texas Education Agency released accountability results for each of Texas' public school districts and campuses. RRISD fared well:
All campuses Met Standard or Met Alternative Standard. Zero campuses required improvement. The district's campuses earned a total of 120 distinction designations. Canyon Creek and Spicewood elementary schools were the two campuses in the district that earned all possible distinctions.
This is the last school year that schools will be evaluated under the existing accountability system, which ranks schools as Met Standard, Met Alternative Standard, not ranked or Improvement Required. The system used for the 2016-17 school year ranked campuses and districts on student achievement, student progress, closing performance gaps and postsecondary readiness. Starting with the 2017-18 school year, districts will be measured in an A-F ranking system that is evaluated based on student achievement, school progress and closing the gaps. Campuses will receive their first official A-F grade in August 2019.
3. Changes are coming to the district's dual language Spanish program
After working with a consultant on the district's dual language Spanish program, RRISD made some changes over the past two years. Prior to 2016, RRISD worked through a 50:50 program that separated students by language for literacy in kindergarten and first grade. Now, the district is moving toward a 90:10 model that allows all students to receive literacy in English and Spanish.
As part of this new 90:10 plan, the district will allow students to spend 90 percent of their day in Spanish in pre-K and kindergarten. From there, the district will slowly move toward a half and half language split by fourth grade. Previously, under the 50:50 plan, students would jump from 90 percent of the day in Spanish in pre-K to just 50 percent of the day in Spanish in kindergarten and future grades. The district is rolling out the 90:10 program for pre-K and kindergarten students but will fully roll out the program through fifth grade by the 2021-22 school year.
The district will also offer two new courses for middle school students starting in the 2017-18 school year. The new courses are Discovering Language and Culture, and Cultural and Linguistic Topics; both will be taught entirely in Spanish.
As it stands, there are 13 dual language campuses in RRISD.
4. RRISD approved its Chapter 41 agreement to send money back to the state for public education
RRISD is designated as a "property rich" district by the state of Texas. This designation is given based off of an equation that divides the total property wealth of the district by the weighted average daily attendance. Because RRISD's equation shows the district's wealth per student is equal to $529,818, more than the state's threshold of $514,000, the district must send money back to the state to subsidize funding for other districts.
This year, RRISD must send $9.7 million back to the state. District Chief Financial Officer Randy Staats said this is equal to roughly $85 on the average taxpayer's bill. The district's proposed maintenance and operations tax rate for the coming year is $1.04 per $100 property valuation. Staats is projecting the district will send more than $35 million back to the state in the next school year.
"[Taxpayers] are writing a larger check to Round Rock ISD, but we aren't necessarily getting to retain all of that," Staats said.