GISD state rating up for district, down for individual campuses
The Texas Education Agency released the 2019 A-F state accountability ratings last Thursday, with Graham Independent School District improving from a C to B rating overall for the district, but falling from a C to D rating for every campus besides Graham High School.
The A-F system was implemented last year and according to the TEA ratings is still based on three areas of performance: student achievement, school progress and closing the gaps. Student achievement is based on how much students know and are able to do at the end of the year, school progress is based on how students perform over time and the growth in comparison to similar schools and closing the gaps is based on how well different cohorts of students within a school are performing.
Graham ratings
The A-F ratings for individual schools is new for this year for campuses throughout the state, with last year’s schools being labeled as Met Standard, Met Alternative Standard or Improvement Required.
Graham High School improved from an 86 (Met Standard) to 88 score and received an academic achievement in mathematics, an academic achievement in social studies, was in the top 25% of the comparative academic growth and had positive post-secondary readiness for students. The campus received 89 out of 100 in student achievement, 91 out of 100 in school progress and 81 out in closing the gaps.
Graham Junior High School lowered from a 72 (Met Standard) to a 65 score, but did receive an academic achievement for social studies. The campus received a 75 out of 100 in student achievement, 77 out of 100 in school progress and 36 out of 100 in closing the gaps.
Graham Elementary School or Woodland Elementary School paired with Crestview Elementary School, lowered from a 72 (Met Standard) to a 61 score. The campuses received a 67 out 100 in student achievement, 60 out of 100 in school progress and 48 out of 100 in closing the gaps.
According to TEA, a total of 464 elementary schools, 150 middle schools, 71 high schools and 18 K-12 campuses received a D rating statewide including charter schools. The rating which was received by the most campuses statewide was a B rating with a total of 3,276 campuses receiving the rating which included 1,674 elementary schools, 658 middle schools, 761 high schools and 183 K-12 campuses.
GISD Superintendent Sonny Cruse said the campus did not do a good enough job instructing in certain areas as measured by the STAAR exam.
“We performed very poorly in a couple of the domains, especially domain three which is called closing the gaps, we did not perform well there,” Cruse said. “I am confident though that we are going to make strides in that this year. We have done some things even early on in our inservice work this year.”
Cruse said he and his leadership team are having root cause discussions and looking back at the last four to six years and seeing what was put in place and not working correctly. Cruse said two things have been done during inservice before the new school year to help improve the campuses.
“We brought in the school improvement team from Region 9 and we spent one day with our grades three through eight math and English/language arts teachers studying domain three (closing the gaps), understanding the accountability system and what that means and what we have to do differently,” Cruse said. “We also spent a day with our (grades) three through eight English and math teachers and we are doing a series of workshops this year called data-driven instruction. That’s an improvement process that the service center has helped several schools implement and have really done well when they have implemented it.”
Cruse said in the next several weeks the district will go through a TEA self-assessment which help the district address specific issues. He also said when plans become more finalized for the district, he will host a public meeting to share the district’s plans.
“I anticipate us having a series of meetings with the board of trustees just specifically about accountability and how we are going to get this problem rectified,” Cruse said. “The bottom line is, I am very proud of a lot of things we do in the district and I am very proud of a lot of the success we have had, but in this area, as measured by STAAR, I am disappointed and I know we can do better.”
For the rest of the story, see the Wednesday, Aug. 21 edition of The Graham Leader.
