The Carroll ISD board of trustees heard the 2026-27 district improvement plan and campus improvement plans at its Sept. 28 meeting.
The improvement plan serves as a staff guide for achieving district goals and ensuring student performance improvement in order to reach state standards.Individual campuses have their own improvement plans which align with the district plan, according to the district.
There are five goals outlined in the plan that include the areas of ensuring strong educational experiences, recruit and retain qualified staff, support technological resources and training, optimize resources and expand opportunities to engage the community.
Each goal includes strategies for how to achieve them, according to the plan.
The plan set a goal to increase small group instructions that will decrease student achievement gaps by meeting more students where they are. Another goal was the expansion of career and technical education programs.
The details
The expansion and streamlining of CTE programs would involve more real-world problem solving and partnerships with local businesses, colleges and community organizations to increase internship and work based learning opportunities, according to the plan.
While the new priorities would increase chances for industry certifications and career pathways, they would also help educators from being overworked, said Gina Peddy, executive director of curriculum and instruction.
“We want to be more intentional in what we look at with our career pathways. Right now, we have many pathways and what that's doing is it can tend to put an extra burden on your staff,” Peddy said. “What we’re doing is we’re hoping to take a look at ‘alright, these are the pathways that are truly excelling and we’ve got a lot of enrollment in those and these are our low enrollment ones, what can we work to figure out what to do with those next?’"
Related highlights
Peddy also gave updates on the district’s initiative to decrease technology use in schools.
CISD’s digital resource list has been decreased from 1,236 to 168, according to the district.
Not all programs on the list are widely used within the district, Peddy said. Some programs on the list are put there if a teacher was interested in using them or if they were being used in a single instance.
District employees worked with principles to determine which resources were regularly used on their campuses and should remain on the list.
While not all of the programs were in use or being paid for by the district, the reduction of the list has resulted in some cost reduction, Peddy said.
What parents should know
District policies are also updating what restrictions on technology and parent opt-outs look like in practice.
Previously the opt-out option automatically included core technologies like Canvas and Classlink.
A second-tier option is being added that would change instructional practices to avoid technology but wouldn't be a total cut off of technology access.
