Snyder ISD officials are heading to Austin to plead their case for a dual-pathway realignment in front of state officials.
Snyder ISD Superintendent Dr. Eddie Bland, Board President Ralph Ramon and Board Vice President Brad Hinton will meet with Texas Education Agency (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath to share information about pending state sanctions against the school district.
The school district is facing the sanctions because of unacceptable academic ratings at Snyder Junior High School for the past five years.
The school district faces one of two possible sanctions: Removal of the school board and replacing it with a state-appointed board of managers or closing the junior high school.
If the campus closes, it can either be reopened as a charter school or with grade levels significantly realigned.
School officials gathered enough parent signatures on a petition calling for closure that Morath is expected to levy that sanction, as outlined in the state law.
Snyder officials are hopeful Morath chooses to allow them to proceed with the realignment option and have established the basic structure for how that would be implemented.
Under the plan, instruction at the high school and in kindergarten and first grade would be basically unchanged, while pre-kindergartners would attend class at the Stanfield Early Childhood Center.
Second through eighth graders would be placed in one of two instructional pathways — one featuring a more traditional classroom setting and the other featuring service learning and hands-on projects, commonly known as inquiry-based learning.
The school district gathered 311 petitions signed by junior high school parents supporting the closure, which is part of the official sanctioning process.
Once the closure petitions are presented to Morath, the state education code states that he will order the requested action.
The district also collected more than 400 signatures supporting the dual pathway plan, however those petitions are not officially part of the sanction process and are only meant to show the community’s support for the school district’s dual pathway plan.
Bland said he is unsure what developments will come from Thursday’s meeting. Morath is expected to make a final decision on sanctions by mid-December.
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