TEXARKANA, Texas -- Texarkana Independent School District Board of Trustees adopted a resolution to enact a plan that redistricts TISD single-member trustee district lines using 2020 Census data in a regular meeting on Wednesday.
The Board was presented with "Plan A" in a special meeting last week where no amendments were made, and there was no further discussion on changing these plans yesterday. These plans affect trustee districts and voting territories, not attendance boundaries.
The plan, presented last week by the Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta firm out of Austin, Texas, is designed to bring the district zones into balance without drastically affecting minority populations in Districts 1 and 2.
Redistricting efforts would line the overall district up with no more than a 5% deviation between trustee districts.
The Bickerstaff Heath Delgado Acosta firm found that Districts 1, 2 and 3 are too small, while Districts 4 and 5 are too large. District 2 is the smallest – too small by about 1,000 people – And District 4 is the largest - too large by 1,300 people.
In other news from the meeting, TISD officials announced that the district received a rating of "A: Superior Achievement" under Texas' School FIRST financial accountability rating system. This is the 19th straight year that the district has received a Superior rating.
Chief Financial Officer Anita Clay said this is indicative of the district making the most of the taxpayers' dollars.
The 2022-2023 Health Plan decision as also approved by the board. TISD chose to remain with TRS-ActiveCare for the 2022-2023 school year.
The board also heard student academic performance reports.
The report showed a 12% decrease in average mathematics and writing scores on the State of Texas Assessment of Academic Readiness (STAAR) for all grade levels. These decreases were consistent with state trends.
Social Studies scores were the only ones that did not decrease, for TISD and state averages. This is largely believed to be caused by COVID effects.
(The next meeting for the TISD Board will be Wednesday, Jan. 26.)