By Michaela Rush
By Michaela Rush
Standard-Radio Post reporter
Fredericksburg Independent School District trustees discussed potential legislative priorities for the district for the 2025 legislative session, including accountability measures for proposed school vouchers.
During the board’s meeting on Monday, Oct. 14 trustee Judge Edwards said it’s critical that FISD gets in on the legislative conversation.
“If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu,” Edwards said. “I want to make sure that we’re not on the menu.”
Superintendent Dr. Joe Rodriguez said he’s observed other districts advocating for accountability from all schools, should vouchers or education savings account measures pass.
“Last but not least, ensuring any charter or private schools that potentially could receive state funds are held to the same accountability standards as traditional public schools,” Rodriguez said.
Board president Mark Cornett appointed Edwards, Brian Lehne and Taylor Ward
FISD ⶠAX to a committee to begin investigating potential legislative priorities for FISD.
The committee will present initial findings at November’s board meeting.
Rodriguez shared that other school boards in Texas have laid out priorities such as increasing the per student allotment for schools to match inflation, boosting funding for school safety initatives and reforming Chapter 41 or “Robin Hood,” in which the state collects “recapture” funds from property wealthy districts.
Another area of concern was funding for special education students, as discussed at a recent Texas Senate finance committee meeting.
“We are between $1.7 to $1.9 billion underfunded in Texas when it comes to special education students,” Rodriguez said.
This is in addition to the growth in special education program enrollment across the nation. The Texas Education Agency (TEA) estimates that special education student populations increased by 21% between the 2017-18 and 2020-21 school years.
Academic progress at FPS Board members also heard from Blaine Hahn, principal of Fredericksburg Primary School (FPS), who shared academic trends from the campus based on last year’s test scores.
From fall 2023 to fall 2024, mClass assessments showed improvement across five kindergarten categories and four first grade categories. The assessment measures skills like letter naming and sounds, reading accuracy and reading fluency.
At the first grade level, the median scores for math also grew by five points, from 53 and 58 in the 202324 school year.
In the Circle Progress Monitoring System, a preschool assessment, FPS also saw growth in the 2023-24 school year.
In English categories, the most substantial growth was in rapid letter naming, which went from a score of 25% of students “on-track” in fall 2023, or wave 1, to 49% in spring 2024, or wave 3.
The school did see some decline in the percentages for English phonological awareness, from 92% to 74% on-track, and in early writing skills, 92% to 74%.
Hahn said these decreases are due to the higher level of skills students are expected to have at the end of the year, and the changes in curriculum that occurred last year. “Wave 3 moves quite a bit of the expectations … It’s not like they’re taking the same test,” Hahn said. “They’re asking for a pretty high jump from wave 1 to wave 3.” Overall, Hahn said he was pleased with the testing data from the previous school year.
“When you look at kindergarten … those are actually really high-level readers already,” Hahn said.
New innovative course Assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction Lori Maxcey presented to the board about a potential new innovative course for Fredericksburg High School (FHS).
“This program is known as the vocational adjustment class, or path that provides special-educationrelated services to a student who is placed on a job with regularly-scheduled direct involvement from special education personnel,” Maxcey said.
The course, which is intended to help special education students acquire skills for employment, would be a prerequisite for placement at a job site through the vocational adjustment class (VAC).
The board unanimously approved the new course.
District improvement plan Maxcey also presented an item of new business, to approve the 2024-25 District Improvement Plan (DIP).
“The first part of the plan is a comprehensive needs assessment, so that’s data from many different sources, from STAAR, graduation rates, all of those things are analyzed for the past year to see what we need to work on for the current year,” Maxcey said.
This plan is based on the district’s five-year strategic plan, which was presented at September’s meeting.
The main goals of the DIP are the same as the strategic plan, to have: 1) high-performing students 2) highly engaged staff 3) strong community partnerships 4) strategic resource management Each goal had a set of strategies attached to it, specific to the 2024-25 school year.
Maxcey said one of the strategies for goal one is to use district resources to improve K-8 math and K-5 science.
“Middle school math and fifth grade science were areas that really stuck out on STAAR tests as needing work,” Maxcey said.
For goal two and three the district seeks wants to more efficiently plan communication measures, so each campus’s needs are met.
For the fourth goal, the strategic points included improving understanding of budget and finances for adminstrators and developing a preventative maintenance plan for facilities.
The board also:
• Presented Fredericksburg Middle School with the monthly student attendance award.
• Presented Stonewall Elementary School with the monthly staff attendance award.
• Recognized the FHS construction program.
• Recognized campus principals in honor of National Principals Month.
• Approved the purchase of security window film for all campuses.
• Heard updates from student representative Aven Ottmers.
• Heard updates on fourth grade class sizes.
• Heard updates on the new FMS campus and career and technical education facilities.
• Approved September meeting minutes.
• Approved consent agenda that included fund statements.
• Approved updates to the policy DK (local) to align it with the district innovation plan.