By Kathryn Robertson, Director of Federal Programs, San Saba ISD
In the state of Texas, each school district is provided with an annual academic accountability rating. These ratings are derived from how well each school performed on standardized assessments, College, Career, and Military Readiness (CCMR), and graduation rates. The Texas Legislature passed House Bill (HB) 22, establishing three domains that are used to measure the academic performance of each district and campus.
The three domains are Student Achievement, School Progress, and Closing Achievement Gaps. Student Achievement evaluates student performance in all subject areas for all students, CCMR data, and graduation rates. One hundred percent of the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) for elementary and middle school campuses is used to calculate this domain. High school campuses use forty percent of STAAR, forty percent of CCMR data, and twenty percent of graduation rates to calculate student achievement scores.
The three areas of STAAR performance used are Approaches Grade Level, Meets Grade Level, and Masters Grade Level.
School progress measures academic growth and relative performance. This domain looks to see if students made at least one year of academic achievement or if they are on track to make growth. The state looks at progress measures from STAAR in the areas of Reading and Mathematics. This information is determined by comparing a student's results from the previous testing year to their results from the current year. Student progress can be categorized as Limited, Expected, or Accelerated progress. The state then compares the performance of a school district to other campuses or districts with similar economically disadvantaged percentages. The campus will then get to take the score that is better for academic growth or relative performance.
Closing the gaps uses disaggregated data to look at the demographics of each school to see if these various student groups are making progress to meet Federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) requirements and state accountability requirements. The components of Closing the Gap domain consist of Academic Achievement in Reading and Mathematics, Growth or Graduation, English Language Proficiency component, and School Quality or Student Success. There are potentially 14 areas that can be evaluated if the minimum size requirement is met. If a campus meets the minimum size requirements, then it will be evaluated on that component and it will be compared to the target.
The district will get an overall rating label by taking the better score in either Student Achievement or School Progress and weight that at 70 percent. The remaining 30 percent comes from Closing the Gap domain. Districts and campuses receive a rating of A, B, C, D, or F for overall performance, as well as the performance in each one of these domains. An A has a scaled score of 90-100 and means Exemplary Performance, a B has a scaled score of 80-89 and means Recognized Performance, a C has a scaled score of 70-79 and means Acceptable Performance, a D has a scaled score of 60-69 and means the school is in Need of Improvement, and an F has a scaled score of 59 or below and means Unacceptable Performance.
San Saba Elementary School received an overall accountability rating of a B “ Recognized Performance” and received distinction designations for Mathematics and Comparative Academic Growth. A distinction designation is an award for achievement in several areas and is based on performance that is relative to a group of campuses of similar type, size, grade span, and student demographics. Comparative Academic Growth is awarded to campuses that are ranked in the top 25 percent of campuses in a comparison group.
San Saba Middle School received an overall rating of a B “Recognized Performance” and distinction designations for Comparative Academic Growth. San Saba High School received an overall accountability rating of a B “ Recognized Performance” with distinction designations in Reading and Postsecondary Readiness. As a district, San Saba Independent School District received an overall accountability rating of a B “Recognized Performance.” San Saba Independent School District received these ratings due to the hard work from every staff member and all of the students of San Saba. Keep up the good work!