Administrators at Marble Falls ISD have embarked on an academic cultural shift based on a foundation of enhancing language arts and math instruction results.
Administrators, under the guidance of the Texas Education Agency (TEA), will implement a five-year strategic plan starting the 2026-27 school year.
Superintendent Jeff Gasaway described components of implementation as providing “a compass of what we want that experience to look like for the kids as we’re building this plan.”
The effort began unfolding several years ago when the district was in the midst of processing a C rating from TEA in 2024 and 2025. A “C” rating in TEA’s A–F system means the district is “acceptably performing” but denotes room for improvement.
During the May 19 Marble Falls ISD Board of Trustees meeting, Gasaway and a number of the district’s administrators provided a series of reports on the improvement effort.
They outlined steps taken to launch the strategic plan focused on mathematics next school year.
He offered insight into how planning unfolded.
Staff Survey
“We sent out surveys from the campus principals, from myself. We were getting thousands of responses back that just gave us data to be able to assemble to look at what do our parents want, what do they want student experiences to be, what are our kids saying?” Gasaway explained.
A core group of 12 assistant superintendents, campus principals and administrators as well as a select group of parents and students have worked together at the start of the process.
Administrators boiled down responses to the following:
• “Every day, each student: feels seen, valued, respected, and loved in a safe, supportive environment; engages in meaningful, real world learning that builds resilience, problem-solving, and collaboration, while preparing them for the future.”
“We had these as giving us a compass of what we want that experience to look like for the kids as we’re building this plan,” Gasaway told board members.
• Also, the district ensures each student “is empowered by caring educators to take risks, explore new ideas, and pursue their passions; is encouraged by educators and peers to exceed expectations, embrace productive struggle, and try hard things with the understanding that mistakes are part of learning.”
Officials incorporat ed that assessment into the district’s “effective framework” with components like planning and performance management; integrated student support systems; quality instructional materials; instructional leadership; and finance and operations.
The district applied for a one-year $409,000 to assist with the launch of the strategic planning program.
Plan Initiatives
An initial result of the process involved adoption of the district’s new math instructional materials to be utilized next school year.
The district priorities consist of two initiatives with action planning dates and steps for each year; the four-year plan would be reassessed annually.
The last strategic plan the district considered was around 2010 but not executed, Gasaway explained. This time, the aim is to provide annual follow ups and updates with the board of trustees.
Strategic Planning In the strategic planning component, Marble Falls High School Principal Patrick Hinson, using a “playbook” coaching metaphor, described how the strategies can inspire and guide participants.
“As long as we check the goals and do the things we say we’re going to do, during those four years, it’s going to produce results,” Hinson said, who shared he has participated in the process twice in past districts. “It’s very time intensive. … The work you’re seeing here will work as long as we, as a district and as a board, put it into place.
"We're still fighting COVID gaps. We’re still fighting gaps in different curriculum throughout the process,” Hinson continued. “It’s important for us to have math and English materials that are high quality approved by the state and just approved to put in front of our kids and our teachers from levels K-12.”
Overall, strategies will direct officials to: come up with an “instructional playbook” to develop processes; adjust campus master schedules to give teachers a dedicated time framework to plan and implement; re-launch professional learning communities (PLC) to bring educators together to assess progress; and include strategies for “special populations”.
“We want the low-level learners, the mi-level learners, the high learners doing all that,” Hinson said.
Another focus is assimilating new teachers into the academic culture of Marble Falls ISD cultivated by implementation of the “playbook”.
For the instructional planning and delivery component, Assistant Superintendent Stan Whittle explained that training will play an important role in executing a strong instructional plan.
“Our intention is to ensure that every educator receives the training and ongoing support needed to deliver strong, effective instruction for all students,” Whittle said.
Instructional Materials Coordinator Melissa Fields offered details about the “management of curriculum and instruction” component of the plan.
She detailed progress on an initiative for “high quality instructional material (HQIM)”. Steps include creating a list of district-approved instructional materials and removing non-approved materials.
“We all know there is not one resource that does everything or covers every need for every student, so we have to have some supplemental resources in our classrooms. What are those? And what is approved,” Fields said. “That process is ongoing.
“One of the things I’m working on with all the assistant principals is removing all non-approved material; not that they are ‘non-approved’ but all of our old material that are no longer our latest and greatest,” she added. “They need to come out of classrooms, out of our buildings, so we can move forward with the new things.”
Over the summer, teachers will receive training, and administrators will evaluate the experience. During the math implementation next school year, educators will begin evaluating the language arts and reading curricula to be advanced in March 2027.
Director of Elementary Education Soor-el Puga also updated the board on a teacher mentor process; attention to “diverse learners” (special education and bi-lingual students; and training to emphasize “researched-based instructional strategies” (RBIS) which will go hand-in-hand with aligning teachers with protocols.
A final component includes monitoring curriculum and instruction involving calendars and monthly checks.
“We’re going to learn a lot next year as we go through and we monitor math and then we’ll decide reading; and next year, we’ll monitor reading and math,” Assistant Superintendent Yarda Le- flet told board members.
Once adopted, the strategic plan’s duration will go through spring of 2030.
