The Cy-Fair ISD board of trustees met Thursday, Oct. 12, to hear reports from various departments and take action on agenda items. Here's what you need to know:

Start of the school year

As of Oct. 12, the district’s total student enrollment was 116,430. Before the school year began, officials projected the enrollment would be 115,971 at the end of October, Chief of Staff Teresa Hull said.

Much of the enrollment increase was not related to Harvey, she said. According to crisis codes compiled by the Texas Education Agency, 619 CFISD students were displaced or required additional services because of Harvey.

In total—pre-K through 12th grade—14,007 students were new to the district this year. Of those students, 6,683 are in 1st through 12th grade.

Hull said more students are opting to eat meals on campus this year, and nutrition services served 1.5 million meals in the first 13 days of school. A little more than half of students—51.4 percent—qualify for free or reduced-price lunches.

More students are also opting to take the bus to and from school, Hull said. This year, about 80,000 students are being transported on CFISD buses, which also exceeds projections. In the first week of school, some buses experienced overcrowding, and four buses were added in the Fairfield area alone.

Facilities updates

Chief of Operations Officer Roy Sprague provided an update on campus facilities. Four new campuses were successfully opened in August after being constructed with money from the 2014 bond—Bridgeland High School, Hoover Elementary School, Wells Elementary School and a replacement campus for Matzke Elementary School.

Sprague projected the final savings on the $1.2 billion bond to exceed $12.7 million.

Middle School No. 19, located off FM 529 and Westgreen Road at Cypress Park High School, is in the design phase and expected to open in August 2020.

At Moore Elementary School, Sprague said his team is continuing to evaluate to scope of damage Harvey caused. Because there is still high moisture in some of the brick, some or all brick might have to be replaced, he said.

The team is working on some long-term design solutions to mitigate future flooding, Sprague said. According to his estimates, Moore Elementary students might not move back to their home campus until August 2018. In the meantime, they will attend classes at the old Matzke Elementary School campus.

New pre-K partnership

Linda Macias, associate superintendent of curriculum, instruction and accountability, presented a new early childhood education partnership the district expects to launch by the end of the month. Through a collaboration between the Texas Workforce Commission and the Texas Education Agency, the district was awarded a $450,000 grant earlier this year for the program.

The program allows 4-star child care providers—ranked by Texas Rising Star—to partner with their local school district to offer pre-K programming to 3- and 4-year-olds.

Kids R Kids, a Copperfield area private daycare center at 15230 Forest Trails Drive, Houston, will be the first to participate in the partnership with a focus on reaching economically disadvantaged children. An expected 24 4-year-olds and 37 3-year-olds will have access to CFISD curriculum taught by certified teachers to help close the performance gap before children start kindergarten.

Trustee Christine Hartley, a kindergarten teacher, said she sees the difference pre-K makes in preparing students for kindergarten on a daily basis. She expressed support for the program and said it was a great way to help meet the pre-K need within the district without having to build new facilities.

Macias said expanding the program is an option for the future, but she wants to treat this partnership as a pilot and create a model that can be duplicated across the state.

Waiver requests
Items on the consensus agenda included requesting a missed school day waiver and a maximum class size waiver.

The board voted to request a missed school day waiver from the Texas Education Agency after missing nine instructional days during Harvey. All districts within the 58-county disaster area—including Harris County—are eligible to apply.

The waiver means districts will not have to make up the missed days or adjust school calendars. CFISD missed Aug. 28-Sept. 1 and Sept. 5-8. However, even with nine missed days, the total number of instructional minutes will still satisfy the state requirement.

Trustees also voted to request a maximum class size waiver from the Commissioner of Education. At an Oct. 9 board work session, Deborah Stewart, associate superintendent of human resources and student services, said enrollment has increased at the elementary, middle and high school levels.

“The majority of our waivers—if not all of them—are for unanticipated growth,” she said at the Oct. 9 session. “We have surpassed our projected enrollment, and so therefore those classes are a little larger than we anticipated.”

Distinction designation recognitions
While all campuses received the Met Standard rating in 2016-17, several campuses also earned distinction designations—additional recognitions including academic achievement in specific subjects, closing the performance gap and postsecondary readiness. Collectively, CFISD schools earned 217 distinction designations last year.

A few campuses earned all possible distinction designations: Cypress Park High School, Langham Creek High School, Arnold Middle School, Hancock Elementary School, Holbrook Elementary School, Lee Elementary School, Pope Elementary School and Sampson Elementary School.