CISD enrollment up; year off to good start

Submitted by Cameron1 on

By Lindsey Vaculin

General Manager

 

The 2016-17 school year is off to a great start in Cameron Independent School District and exciting things are happening.

CISD Superintendent Allan Sapp said enrollment is on the rise. The district started the year with 1,833 students, which is 50 more students than the end of the 2015-16 school year.

That number included 20 students in CISD’s new 3-year-old Pre-K program.

The new half-day program gives additional academic and social interaction to a group of students who may not get that at home, Sapp said. There are currently 125 students in the 4-year-old Pre-K program at Cameron ISD.

Sapp said enrollment has picked up over the last few years, with a growth rate around three percent per year.

Eight new staff members have been added across the district to help with that growth. 

“We are also very excited about our teachers and the new C2L collaborative that we began this school year,” Sapp said.

The C2L or Commit 2 Learning collaborative is an effort to bring teachers from various school districts together to share ideas and collaborate on teaching strategies.

Cameron ISD has partnered with Rockdale and Lexington ISDs for the project.

“This really benefits our teachers,” Sapp said. “Having others to collaborate with is great for them. Sometimes in a small school district you might be the only seventh grade math teacher or eighth grade English teacher, this gives those teachers someone to share ideas with.”

Sapp said the superintendents of the three districts came together last spring to form the collaborative.

The C2L meet on Aug. 12 and plans to meet throughout the year in October, January and March to share ideas and talk.

“The teachers will have time to get back together again to talk about what everyone did the first six weeks and compare notes,” Sapp said. “Maybe our data works, maybe their’s does. They can continue to build off of that.”

Sapp said this give teachers “more tools in the toolbox.” 

“It also helps our students be prepared,” he said. “It is an ongoing process.”

He said he hopes to add more school districts to the collaborative in the future and that there has already been interest from one superintendent in the area.