Troup contracting with Arp for alternative placement program

Mar. 8—Troup Independent School District trustees voted Monday to discontinue the district's disciplinary alternative education program and join that of Arp ISD.

Troup's DAEP began in 2005 and students have always met in the Troup ISD Administration Building.

The program removes students with disciplinary issues from the regular classroom and places them in an alternative setting.

"When it originated, it was a group of a number of school districts that were part of the cooperative that came, that sent teachers and paid money to be a part of that," Superintendent Tammy Jones said.

Those currently involved, aside from Troup, are the New Summerfield and Carlisle school districts.

"One thing we began noticing, probably two years ago, was just a concern related to placement of students here in our building, as a workplace, trying to conduct business," Jones said. "Second of all, there's the fact that it doesn't seem to be much of a deterrent in any capacity due to simply the convenience of it."

Arp ISD offered the opportunity to join their DAEP, providing up to 20 seats for Troup students.

Trustee Lisa Lewis questioned who would be providing transportation. Jones said the parents would bear that responsibility.

Board President Shane Jasper asked whether the number would be sufficient and was assured the highest number Troup has had this year was 12.

New Summerfield and Carlisle school districts had been notified Troup was seeking to join another cooperative.

The board certified unopposed candidates and canceled the May 4 election. Those certified as unopposed and elected were Jake Howard, Place 1; Homer Dickey, Place 4 and Ty Lindsey, Place 5.

Trustees also certified Jones as the district's representative to the Region 7 ESC Regional Advisory Committee for the 2024-2025 school year.

The board approved an amendment to the District of Innovation which will allow the district to plan a school year of 185 teacher work days, two shorter than the Texas Education code's minimum of 187 days, without affecting teacher salaries.

The minimum amount of instructional minutes for students is set at 75,600 per school year. The 2024-2025 school calendar has over three full day's worth of minutes built in, a total of 77,130, to allow for bad weather days when the district may need to close schools.

The board then approved the proposed calendar for the 2024-2025 school year, which has since been posted to the district website, troupisd.org.

Trustees also approved a resolution declaring a Good Cause Exception for the House Bill 3 Armed Security Requirement, which necessitates an armed officer on every campus within a school district.

"I visited with experts at Region 7 when they came and did our audit," Jones said. "To me it made sense that we would utilize the proximity exception. When you look at the location of our high school and middle school, connected, and the opportunity for our officer to readily be in both of those places. Our Region 7 auditors absolutely agreed."

The elementary campus has its own school resource officer.

For information regarding Troup ISD, visit troupisd.org.