District of Innovation
A District of Innovation is a concept passed by the 84th Legislative Session in House Bill 1842, effective immediately, that gives traditional independent school districts most of the flexibilities available to Texas’ open enrollment charter schools. To access these flexibilities, a school district must adopt an innovation plan, as set forth in the Texas Education Code chapter 12A.
Areas to consider for the DOI Plan
- Better balanced semesters
- Greater flexibility in calendar development
- specifically second probationary year for teachers hired under 5 of 8 rule
- will have the flexibility of hiring a probationary teacher for a second year to provide for more growth and coaching when the teacher is hired under the 5 of 8 rule.
- flexibility in hiring “hard to fill” positions
- flexibility to hire experts in their field even if they don’t yet have a teaching certificate
- flexibility to hire those with industry expertise (e.g. HB 5 courses)
- flexibility to hire credentialed community college instructors or university professors in specific content area
- flexibility to develop a local evaluation system
Credits:
Created with images by Christoph - "bald eagles bald eagle bird of prey" • artsvector - "close up glowing light" • Unsplash - "day planner calendar organizer" • dassel - "art glow eindhoven" • Wokandapix - "blueprint ruler architecture" • Foto-Rabe - "clock time time of" • Freeimages9 - "chalk color red" • sinclair.sharon28 - "Certificate Program" • qimono - "measurement millimeter centimeter" • wilhei - "puzzle match fit"