At its April 21 regular board meeting, the Conroe ISD board of trustees approved the purchase of a new virtual school program named Subject, as well as planned changes to the current virtual program’s model, switching from its current hybrid learning model to a more asynchronous program.
Assistant Superintendent for High Schools Mark Murrell presented the board with the new plan for the district’s virtual school program.
How we got here
The current model for virtual school learning at CISD is a hybrid model for a five-day school week for grades 5-12. Three of the days in the school week are synchronous, where students are engaged and online with direct instruction from a teacher. The remaining two days are asynchronous, where students are given assignments and are expected to complete them on their own time without teacher supervision.
The current hybrid model needs to change, Murrell said, as it suffers from a lack of student engagement and too much demand on teachers. Teachers under the hybrid model are expected to provide mentorship, communication and monitor their students’ engagement and attendance during virtual learning. The new virtual learning plan is designed to be primarily asynchronous, but it can change based on certain student engagement and results.
“The instructional delivery is primarily going to be asynchronous,” Murrell said. “I say primarily because we want to have the ability to shift, especially at the lower grades. As we see some struggles, then we might end up having to see some synchronous time.”
Due to the high workload, teachers are having difficulty communicating with parents and holding students accountable for their work. Murrell said updating the current hybrid model to emphasize more parental supervision and teacher communication will help with this problem.
“One of the vital parts of virtual learning, especially when you start at fifth grade, is to get the parents really involved,” Murrell said. “The parent involvement in virtual learning is a must, and without that communication from teachers at a high level, it’s hard to keep them engaged.”
The framework
Murrell said the district wants to set a higher standard for its virtual school and the expectations of students, aiming to improve attendance and engagement through improved communication, monitoring, mentoring and interventions.
To support this new framework, the virtual learning program Subject, a primarily asynchronous learning program designed to accommodate all students, will provide “high-quality” lessons in accordance with Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, Murrell said. CISD teachers will also be able to supplement their own lessons in order to address any specific student needs in the curriculum.
Murrell said Subject is also powered with artificial intelligence and will be able to tutor students and provide detailed study and lesson models tailored to their needs. The teacher would also be able to enter certain accommodations for students, and Subject also provides attendance and progress updates for teachers to monitor their students’ work and progress in the curriculum.
The district also plans to implement some in-person studies for virtual students around certain extracurricular courses, Murrell said. Students would complete their work online and, on certain days, go to campus for subjects such as athletics, fine arts and hands-on career and technical education courses.
The future
Murrell said the vision the district has for the virtual learning program is to be one of the “premier virtual schooling programs in the state of Texas.” For the 2026-27 school year, the district has planned to move to an asynchronous model with the Subject virtual learning program with CISD teacher support.
CISD hopes to be fully asynchronous with an open enrollment policy by the 2027-28 school year, with the board’s approval, Murrell said.
In order to make sure students stay engaged for virtual learning, Murrell said the district also plans to implement, by the 2027-28 school year, a digital learning portfolio for students to be able to graduate. This digital learning portfolio would be a way for the district to make sure the students demonstrate their understanding of what they learned during their four years of virtual learning.