Hermleigh school board to appoint District of Innovation committee

Hermleigh ISD trustees will discuss having the school named a District of Innovation when they meet Tuesday evening.
A District of Innovation designation would result in increased local control over certain aspects of the school year and students’ education, Superintendent Cassie Petty said in April.
“It would allow us to have more flexibility over the (school year) calendar and more flexibility over things like class sizes, student-teacher ratios and what we do during the school day,” Petty said. “Anytime a school district can get more local control, that’s a good thing.”
Petty said one advantage of trustees being given more latitude on the school calendar is that Hermleigh will be able to align its schedule with Western Texas College (WTC). Petty noted that without the designation, Hermleigh students wouldn’t start the school year until a week or two after WTC begins its fall semester, meaning that students taking concurrent courses from the college would be a week or two behind other Scurry County high school students taking those courses.
The next step in the process, which should take between two and three months to complete, will be to appoint a District of Innovation committee, which will be charged with developing details of the innovation plan. Trustees are expected to appoint that committee Tuesday.
Public hearings and attorney reviews of the plan would follow before it is submitted to the Texas Education Agency for final approval.
In other business Tuesday, trustees will discuss options for track repairs, consider employment of personnel and a resolution to extend the district’s depository contract, auditing services and agreements to participate in two purchasing cooperatives.
A closed session to discuss personnel matters also is scheduled, with any action resulting from that discussion taken in open session.
Tuesday’s meeting will begin at 7 p.m. in the Hermleigh ISD board room, 8010 Business U.S. Hwy. 84. It is open to the public and time has been set aside for public comments on non-agenda items.