The board of trustees with Flour Bluff Independent School District recently made an announcement on voting to dissolve the University Preparatory High School program.
According to the district, the change comes because of new requirements imposed by the state of Texas.
This announcement has many parents and students upset.
According to the district’s website, the Flour Bluff Independent School District University Preparatory High School Program offers dozens of classes, including chemistry, physics, pre-calculus and more.
The program gives a head start for Flour Bluff High School students wanting to earn college credit.
However, the FBISD board of trustees says this program will dissolve by the end of the 2018-2019 school year.
KRIS 6 spoke to board member Jeffery Rank, who is against dissolving the program and wants clarification on exactly what the term “dissolve” means.
Will the program end after the of the next school year? Or will the program phase out? Allowing those in the program to complete their credit work.
Rank plans to fight this issue in the next board meeting which will be 6:00 pm on July 26th.
KRIS 6 did reach out to FBISD board president Steve Ellis who did not give comment on this topic, but did refer us back to the board of trustees statement.
In a statement posted to the district’s website, the board said:
At the regular June board meeting of the Flour Bluff ISD Board of Trustees, the board voted to dissolve the University Preparatory High School (UPHS) program effective at the end of the 2018-2019 school year. The board made this decision principally for the reason that the State of Texas has substantially changed the requirements for early college high school programs (such as UPHS), in a manner that made it impossible for FBISD to comply. The UPHS is currently out of compliance with state law, and the board was forced to take action to restructure student opportunities for college credit. At a workshop session in April, the future of UPHS was discussed at length and the consensus of the board was that a change was required.
The board plans to re-emphasize our outstanding Advanced Placement courses, which provide opportunities for honors level work and college credit through AP examinations, as well as dual credit courses, which have always been available to Flour Bluff students. We also expect to create successor programs for students to have opportunities for college level work and course credit through Texas A&M Corpus Christi and Del Mar College, while they are students at Flour Bluff. It is our goal to provide opportunities for every student who has a desire to rise to the challenge of college level work, so that the greatest number of Flour Bluff students and graduates will have the opportunity to succeed in whatever path they choose.
