Eanes school board members approved a 2009 District Improvement Plan on Nov. 18 and listened to a report by human resources head Lester Wolff that showed a district enrollment increase of 177 students this year.

Board members delayed a vote specifying changes in graduation requirements for Westlake High School students next year.

Bill Bechtol presented the board with a 30-page 2009-10 District Improvement Plan based on the goals approved in July and plans approved by campus and district leadership teams. Bechtol said the goals continue to focus the district on academic achievement, a safe learning environment and providing learning opportunities to prepare students for the future. He said the plan also focused on professional learning, efficient allocation of district resources and community engagement. The district will be giving special attention to English and science curriculum changes dictated by the state.

“We are moving beyond our goal of determining if students are college ready; we know they are,” Bechtol said. “We now want to determine if they are college successful.”

He said district administrators are working with colleges and universities to try and gather information on how well Eanes graduates do in higher education environments.

“It is hard to get that information back,” he noted.

Bechtol said that the district was offering new dual credit courses this year, including one online algebra course with the University of Texas. The district plans to expand its foreign language courses by offering a new Mandarin course next year.

Bechtol reminded board members that the state made several changes to graduation requirements for Texas high school students through HB 3 during the last legislative session, effectively reducing requirements by a half credit in health, a half credit in physical education and a full credit in technology applications.

Bechtol said that a WHS Graduation Committee began meeting in October to determine the impact of such changes on local students. The committee recommended that the district continue to require the additional half credit in health and the full credit in technology for all students.

Board members decided against voting on changes to high school requirements during the meeting.

Wolff broke down the district’s enrollment growth, saying that 100 of the 177 new students entered elementary classrooms, and 77 enrolled in secondary campuses. He called the increase the largest experienced by the district during the last five years. Total district enrollment on the Oct. 30 snapshot day was 7,495 students. Eanes Elementary School had the highest growth this year with 42 new students. West Ridge Middle School, Bridge Point and Forest Trail elementary schools experienced an overall decrease in students this year.

Average class size for kindergarten through fourth grade in the district is 20.1, up from 19.8 last year. Average class size for fifth grade is 25.6, up from 24.8 last year. Average class size stayed relatively stable for both middle school grades at 24.6 students and high school at 24.7 student. District fifth-grade class sizes range between 25 and 26.5 students, Wolff said.

Valley View Elementary School second-grade level are the closest classrooms to exceeding the state limit of 22 students. All Valley View second-grade classes currently have 22 students enrolled.

The district currently has 563 transfer students enrolled, down from 604 last year. Wolff said that non-employee transfers account for most of that decrease. WHS has 231 transfers, Hill Country Middle School has 51 and West Ridge Middle School has 56 transfers this year.

In other news, the school board voted to approve the hiring of Kimberly Smith as a special education life skills teacher at WHS and voted for Rollingwood resident Bill Hamilton for chief appraiser of the Travis Central Appraisal District out of four nominees.