Floydada Collegiate Independent School District Logo
by Laura Tolley, managing editor of Texas Lone Star magazine, a publication of the Texas Association of School Boards
This article highlighting Floydada Collegiate ISD was originally published in the May 2022 issue of Texas Lone Star magazine and is republished here with their generous permission.
Exactly how little Floydada, Texas, got its name isn’t crystal clear.
The original Floyd City name was unacceptable after the town got a post office because Floyd, Texas, already existed. Floydalia may have been the next choice, but as the Handbook of Texas recounts, the name may have been garbled in a transmission to Washington. The Floyd County town was established in 1890 on land donated by James B. and Caroline Price, and his mother was named Ada. Caroline’s mother was also named Ada, and her dad was Floyd. Thus, Floydada!
No such mystery surrounds a more recent name change in this northwest Texas farming community of cotton, pumpkin, and wheat growers, among other crops. School trustees voted earlier this year to officially call the school district Floydada Collegiate ISD (FCISD) to reflect its membership in the Collegiate Edu-Nation (CEN), a nonprofit organization working with high-performing rural schools to better prepare students for college and skilled career paths in their own communities.
FCISD is still in the planning stages of this new educational program, but school administrators decided to go ahead with parts of the initiative, including the new name.
“With CEN, we kind of dove in headfirst. We’re not real patient. If it’s good for the kids, we want to do it,” said FCISD Superintendent Gilbert Trevino. “The hope is that through this process, we are able to develop our rural community. We’re trying to address the (student and workforce) needs of our community.”
What Trevino and others value in the CEN concept is a nontraditional approach involving free dual-credit courses, focused staff support, structured learning paths, apprenticeships, internships, and other opportunities that can benefit all students, but especially those who may have few opportunities once they walk the graduation stage.
While urban and suburban school districts have long touted dual-credit and internship programs, these academic options can be limited, even nonexistent, in rural areas. Young men and women who’ve grown up on farms and ranches feel compelled to leave their hometowns after graduation for better opportunities. If they stay, the academic and workforce training possibilities are few. Both the students and the rural communities suffer.
CEN’s main goal is to help K-12 public schools, post-secondary education institutions, and the business community work together to improve the available economic and educational options.
“A lot of the time in rural areas, we have a lot of untapped resources,” said Shauna Lane, dean of academic affairs at FCISD, where about 75% of its estimated 700-student population is considered economically disadvantaged. “But just because we are a rural community doesn’t mean our students shouldn’t have those (additional) opportunities.”
How it started
The CEN seeds were sown more than two decades ago in Roscoe, about 130 miles south of Floydada. CEN Founder and President Kim Alexander was working as principal of Roscoe High School, where he saw that his rural students often did well academically but had trouble moving forward after graduation.
“Our disadvantaged students would do well in school, but then once they crossed the graduation stage, it was like they were walking off a cliff. The best part of their lives was behind them,” Alexander said.
In 2001, Roscoe (now Collegiate) ISD partnered with West Texas College in Snyder to begin a dual-credit program, and in 2009 it became the first Early College High School (ECHS) in rural Texas. In 2017, it became the first rural school-wide Pathways in Technology Early College High Schools (P-TECH) academy.
According to Alexander, Texas Education Agency (TEA) Commissioner Mike Morath approached him in 2019 about using the district’s model to establish a nonprofit that could help other rural schools implement similar programs, and CEN became a reality.
Startup funding for CEN schools comes from the TEA School Action Fund and P-TECH grants, which are designed to give students least likely to attend college an opportunity to receive a high school diploma and a credential and/or an associate degree.
Ongoing funding comes from additional Career and Technical Education (CTE) and College, Career, or Military Readiness (CCMR) student outcome bonuses authorized by Texas House Bill 3 in 2019. That bill sought to incentivize public schools to increase post-secondary credential attainment.
Overall, the CEN network serves more than 4,000 students in eight rural school districts in Texas, and several more are scheduled to join next year. The potential for additional growth is great: The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics reports that Texas has more rural schools than any other state in the nation, with more than 20% of campuses located in rural areas.
Alexander said in addition to few opportunities and economic hardships, rural students often don’t have a strong support system to help them succeed.
“All students, regardless of their background, can be extremely successful if they have a strong support system,” Alexander said, adding that has tended to mean parents with money. “We’re trying to level the playing field, so it doesn’t matter where students come from — [it matters] where they want to go.”
One early CEN success
Veronica Cuellar, a lifelong resident of Roscoe, has defied the odds. She earned her bachelor’s degree, is debt-free, and is now working at RCISD, where she’s a CTE teacher.
Cuellar, now 21, and several other students were the first students in RCISD’s CEN program to obtain their bachelor’s degrees. Without the support of CEN, she said she would not have had the financial means for college.
“I’m very thankful for this opportunity,” she said. “I’m the first student to get a bachelor’s degree in my family. It was a struggle, but I did it.”
Cuellar wants to continue her career — and life — in her hometown, where her family still lives.
“I have no plans on leaving at all. I love Roscoe. I also like the opportunity to help others … I want to let students know there are opportunities out there,” she said. “There’s lots of support at school. And not just the school, the whole community. If you need help, they try to pitch in. We always figure something out here in Roscoe.”
Floydada program taking shape
FCISD is in year two of the CEN program, and already has chalked up several accomplishments besides the name change. At the heart of FCISD’s program — and other school districts in the CEN network — is helping high school students obtain an associate degree and an industry certification upon graduation by offering dual-credit hours at no cost to the student, including books. The savings can amount to $150 per class, excluding the cost of books, which varies.
“To take cost out of the equation, we feel we’ve leveled the playing field for all students in Floydada,” Trevino said. “To not have to pay for 30 hours (of college), that’s a game-changer for a lot of families here.”
Last fall, the district officially launched its planning year for its P-TECH program. However, some students started taking virtual dual-credit courses as early as the fall of 2020 in partnership with South Plains College in Levelland, located about 85 miles southwest of Floydada. The 2023 freshman class will be the program’s first true cohort.
Ryan Fitzgerald, dean for dual enrollment and distance education at South Plains, said that while the college does offer course discounts, the no-cost aspect being used by FCISD can make a big difference for many students in a region where “post-secondary opportunities don’t abound.”
FCISD’s overall goal is to have 90% of each class graduate with both an associate and industry-based certificate. That means that graduates will have a debt-free jumpstart on college or a pathway into a meaningful career. P-TECH pathways will include education, law enforcement, business, renewable energy, and health care therapeutics.
Another facet of CEN that FCISD is still developing will provide students with local apprenticeships and internships. The district also is planning a program where graduates can continue their college education in the community and complete a virtual bachelor’s degree from home in some fields. And if a high school student needs a little extra time to complete the online associate degree, they could use those two extra years at home to do so.
The hometown factor is big. Moving away to attend college can be difficult financially, if not impossible, for many students. But leaving family and community can also be challenging.
“It can be scary. Being from family is tough for those who have never been away from them before,” said Lane.
The early results at FCISD are impressive. In spring 2020, about 21% of high school students took a dual-credit course, but that jumped to about 51% in spring of 2021 once the free classes were offered. Last fall, about 65% of students were taking dual-credit courses through the partnership with South Plains.
There have been some challenges as students adjust to the pressures of the increased workload and the online courses, said Kristie Rehkopf, FCISD counselor/academic adviser.
We’ve learned every semester how to make the next semester better,” she said.
Lane and Rehkopf said the extra workload can be difficult for some students, but that’s where extra support from teachers and staff can help. CEN also provides mentoring and other support services for teachers and staff, including assistance in applying for grants.
“We’re learning as we go,” Lane said. “We’re creating high expectations, but we’re setting up our students for success.”
FCISD freshman Katelynn Ramirez, 14, is taking a business computer information systems course this year and plans to take advantage of the free dual-credit courses throughout high school.
“It’s been a little difficult with the work, but I think I can manage it,” she said, adding she gets a lot of support. “Having them [offered for] free really does help. If they weren’t free, I probably would not have been able to participate. I always planned on going to college, but I knew it would be hard financially.”
The FCISD website features an infographic about collegiate schools and the district’s P-20 journey.
