Lewisville ISD’s Board of Trustees unanimously approved turnaround plans for three schools on Monday, including conversion of Mill Street Elementary into a Pre-K campus.
The other two campuses, DeLay Middle School and Durham Middle School, will retain students, but will implement plans to increase its state accountability rating.
Mill Street Elementary is the headlining plan because it will reassign its students to surrounding elementary schools and be repurposed to a second early childhood facility.
It is a tough decision for district leadership, but Superintendent Dr. Lori Rapp said the community gave feedback and hopes Mill Street will achieve a “C” rating this year.
“Thank you to the staff at Mill Street and our shared goal is for Mill Street to achieve a C rating,” said Superintendent Dr. Lori Rapp. “And I appreciate the feedback we have gotten from the community as a part of this process, also.”
Board member Dr. Sheila Taylor said the decision hurts more after she spent time volunteering at the Mill Street campus.
“Knowing what I saw in those students when I was volunteering, it’s very unfortunate they have been reduced to a test score,” she said. “I’m excited there is a plan in place to support our students and to make sure they achieve academic success across all feeder patterns, regardless of zip codes, regardless of language and regardless of socio-economic status.”
According to a district presentation, non-bilingual students reassigned to LISD Stem Academy at Valley Ridge Elementary, which has a “B” TEA rating. The current enrollment for the campus is 615 and the building capacity is 946 students.
Students receiving bilingual instruction will be reassigned based on geography to Lakeland Elementary, currently rated “C” and has space for about 400 more students, Lewisville Elementary, currently rated “C” and has space for about 400 more students or Prairie Trail Elementary, currently rated “A” and has space for about 300 more students.
According to the district, the maximum amount of students that could transfer to Lakeland, Lewisville or Prairie Trail will be 100 each and the maximum number of students Valley Ridge could receive will be 160 students.
LISD Board of Trustees President Jenny Proznik said the Mill Street turnaround plan isn’t designed to be a quick turnaround plan, it is supposed to be an investment that sets students up for success in the future through increased Pre-K enrollment.
“I’m very appreciative to Dr. Rapp and the team that will serve the Lewisville feeder pattern and serve future students in that we will be able to impact more students with Pre-K,” she said. “There is research out there that shows the earlier you get a kid into our schools, the better they do. This is about setting kids up for success for the long term.”
DeLay Middle School
Staffing issues that come with increasing class sizes, more students with learning gaps and disabilities and language barriers have prevented the campus from achieving acceptable state ratings in past years.
The campus’s turnaround plan will work on effective instruction, including data-driven instruction and student learning gap services.
Data-driven instruction helps better monitor student progress through tracked data and in-depth communication between staff, leadership and families.
Services addressing student learning gaps ensures students are in the right class and at the grade level that is appropriate for them to show mastery on classwork.
Durham Middle School
The campus has struggled with mobility, which can disrupt consistency of learning and teaching, academic rigor, which shows students struggling at higher levels because they are not fully prepared when they leave lower levels of math and reading.
Durham’s plan looks to improve the campus’s leadership by focusing on ways to give meaningful feedback, monitor classroom and instruction, as well as using data to track progress for principals.
The campus is also focused on high-quality instructional materials, which includes more “checks for understanding” during class time, at the end of the class period and throughout the teaching unit.
What’s next
While the turnaround plan goes into effect for the 2026-2027 school year, the campuses will be implementing these action plans through the end of this year, as well.
Both middle school campuses are also working on increasing community engagement, which Taylor said is a very important way to improve student performance.
Part of that includes implementing multi-lingual communications to the community.
LISD will submit the approved plans on Nov. 21 and in January we will find out if the commissioner approves or if they are sent back with feedback and changes will be made.
