During the 2020-2021 school year, Duncanville ISD provided District Paid Sick Leave to employees in response to the Families First Coronavirus Response Act. Although this Act ended on December 31, 2020, Duncanville ISD continued to provide access to up to ten days for employees absences. Access to this leave ended on June 30, 2020. The District is currently exploring options related to COVID-19 and employee absences. An update will be provided once a decision has been reached. 

The purpose of the PLC is to work collaboratively to gather data, develop strategies, and improve teacher skills to improve student learning. Using two conference periods, which equals 90 minutes a month, is simply not nearly enough time to address the needs of our students.

The calendar planning committee for the 2021-2022 school year had the unique task of adding more instructional days to the calendar in an effort to proactively address students’ academic needs with our return to 100% in-person instruction. When student instructional days were added, duty days for teachers were directly impacted. Adding instructional days to the calendar without extending the established 187 teacher work days limited the flexibility of district professional development, campus professional development and teacher work days. The current calendar has fewer district and campus professional days but a concerted effort was made to ensure teacher work days were strategically placed. The current calendar has three teacher work days, which is comparable to other school calendars in the area. 

The district calendar planning committee will begin meeting in the coming months to develop the 2022-2023 school year calendar. Your input will be shared with the planning committee as they evaluate the district’s priority needs and how to best apply those elements districtwide. 

The state of Texas will be requiring all students to take the STAAR assessment online starting spring 2023. To ensure our students are fully prepared and have the computer literacy and keyboarding skills necessary, we must prepare our early learners for testing online.

On page 22 of the District Assessment Plan, you can find tips for supporting students with online testing. District Curriculum-based Assessments are also being reviewed to design questions in alignment with the new state testing question format.

Although a raise was not approved for the 2021-2022 school year, the Board approved a one-time payment of $2500. This payment will be made to qualifying staff on November 16, 2021. The District is planning for the upcoming budget season with a goal of focusing on raises for staff for the 2022-2023 school year.

Currently, there are no other  scheduled district-wide team building check-in meetings on the 2021-2022 academic calendar; however, this is a great suggestion and will be shared with the calendar planning committee and district leadership

The current district mask mandate is “temporary” and the determination to continue or suspend will be based on reviewing data of the COVID cases, trends and stakeholder feedback. Based on our most recent data, the temporary mandate is helping to mitigate the spread of Covid 19 in Duncanville ISD.

Based on the district grading guidelines, grades must be posted every week and posted within 5 school days of the assignment as received. If a teacher is not posting grades in a timely manner, please contact the teacher and their campus administrator.

Based on recent changes to the roles of Reading and Math Center Teachers, this role is being studied as a part of a compensation study in preparation of the upcoming budget season. We understand that this role has grown to include other factors. These factors will be considered when making decisions about the future pay structure and responsibilities associated with these roles

In order to ensure students are being taught grade level content while addressing learning loss, campuses/teachers should focus on 3 areas - Acceleration, Remediation and Intervention

If a large majority of students require support to understand the concept the teacher should: 

1. Accelerate -  Pause current instruction for brief reteaching, formatively assess success, and continue with grade level instruction. Repeat as needed. When 80% of students are ready to move forward, continue core instruction or 

2. Remediate -  pause current whole group instruction to spend focused time reteaching and reviewing before revisiting grade-level concepts.When 80% of students are ready to move forward, continue core instruction.

If a small number of students are struggling to understand the concept and underlying skills required: 

1. Intervene - during dedicated small group intervention time, deliver focused instruction to close knowledge gaps and move students forward closer to on-grade success.

We know that COVID-19 has had a huge impact on our ability to secure substitutes across the district. We are very thankful to our staff for filling in the gap in the best interest of students; however, a plan is being created to potentially compensate teachers who are using their planning time to cover classes. The plan will be communicated in November.

The dress code is not intended to be changed during the 2021-2022 school year at this time. The work you are seeing now is a preparation for the upcoming school year. The committees are proactively meeting and planning to consider revisions that will most likely be acted upon for the 2022-2023 school year. 

Over the years, there have been some additions made at Central Office in an effort to support campuses and instruction, and with the added mandates there could possibly be other additions in the future to provide the needed support. For example, not so long ago campuses shared Teacher Specialists.  Additional Teacher Specialist positions were added to ensure that each campus had their own Teacher Specialist. Although this is a Central Office position, these employees support directly at the campus level.

Often when positions become vacant at the Central Office, the positions are redesigned with new responsibilities and a new title. This may look like an added position when it may actually be a position that has been changed. The addition of other positions at Central office like SEL Counselors and Social Workers are completely aligned with the needs of our students.

Although a raise was not approved for the 2021-2022 school year, the Board approved a one time payment of $2500. This payment will be made to qualifying staff on November 16, 2021. The District is planning for the upcoming budget season with a goal of focusing on raises for staff for the 2022-2023 school year. In alignment with our Strategic Plan, Duncanville ISD is focused on becoming a highly competitive district in Region 10.

The district is not able to share information regarding any changes in salary or raises until this information is approved by the Board of Trustees. In Duncanville ISD this typically occurs during the month of June. When an employee signs their contract, the contract is based upon what the current pay structure is in the district at that time.  Employees or potential employees can only use the posted, approved compensation scale when making decisions. Salary is only discussed when an official offer is made by the HR Department.  These offers are always aligned with the approved compensation schedule at the time of the offer.