OSD named District of Innovation, brings changes, new programs
OSD has been named a District of Innovation and is the eighth school district to receive this title from the Mississippi Department of Education.
OSD started this process in the fall by submit- ting their application to the Mississippi Department of Education. The application was a way for OSD to request certain waivers from school accreditation standards to improve the school district’s educational practices.
“District of Innovation is a process that allows districts to apply to try to institute some practices that were not allowed by certain Mississippi school accreditation standards to improve student learn- ing in schools,” Assistant Superintendent Bradley Roberson said. “It gives us flexibility by requesting waivers to be innovative in our educational practices about educating young people.”
According to Roberson, OSD chose to apply be- cause they wanted to make sure that they were do- ing everything that could be done to give students the best opportunities possible.
“We wanted to make sure that we are leaving no stone unturned when it comes to investigating the best practices to teach the kids in our Oxford community,” Roberson said. “We did not want to be bound by certain accreditation standards that may keep us from being innovative in searching out those practices.”
Three major components of Oxford’s application were the Career Academy, the Middle College program and the modified district calendar. The Career Academy allows OSD to create multiple pathways for students to take to allow them to be successful in careers that they may chose to take once they graduate.
“We’re going to start a Career Academy model, which will open up opportunities in our CTE, career technical education, which will be a huge addition to our school,” Roberson said. “We’ll be adding five, maybe six, career technical education courses at OHS once the new Fine Arts facility is built.”
The Middle College program is an opportunity for juniors and seniors to receive an Associate’s degree at the same time that they receive their high school diploma.The program will start next year with a cohort of around 25 students.
“They would still be OSD students, but they would go and spend a considerable amount of time on Northwest Campus and take their core classes there but still have the opportunity to come back and participate in extracurricular activities,” Superintendent Brian Harvey said.
In OSD’s application, a request was made regarding a modification of the district calendar. This doesn’t necessarily mean breaking away from the traditional school calendar, but that is being re- searched and may become a reality in upcoming years.
“[We are] investigating options that maybe there is a two-week break between nine weeks or maybe a one-week break,” Harvey said. “It might be an opportunity to provide some remediation for those students who have already fallen behind in the year and not waiting till the end of the year to remediate.”
OSD also received a waiver on the amount of hours required to receive a Carnegie Unit, which opens up more work-based opportunities for students. With- out this waiver, students would need to have 140 hours of seat time to receive one Carnegie Unit for a year-long class.
“Achieving that status allows us to do some things with the schedule that we, otherwise, wouldn’t have the ability to do,” Harvey said. “That allows us to investigate internships when students are juniors and seniors because they have gotten their core time, their credit time done earlier.”
While many of these changes will take some time to implement, one immediate change for next year regards teachers’ professional development (PD) days. It was confirmed when the 2019-2020 district calendar was released that there will be 14 delayed start days for students. On those Mondays, teachers’ professional development time will occur in the morning before students arrive at school instead of after school.
“The teachers will still be coming in at their normal time to participate in more personalized, small-group professional development throughout the entire district,” Roberson said. “We have tailored that professional development to the needs and passions of the teachers.”
As these changes are implemented, the hope is that each one will help students become more successful, including after they graduate.
“My hope is that we have created an innovative model and pathways for all students within our district, so they can excel in whatever avenue that they choose after they graduate,” Roberson said.