Friday, April 26, 2024
All three public school districts in Hood County earned “B” grades from the Texas Education Agency in the newly released 2019 Accountability Ratings.
The ratings are primarily based on three categories: “Student Achievement,” which measures performance on STAAR tests, postgraduate readiness and graduation; “School Progress,” which measures student improvement from year-to-year and compares districts of similar demographic and economic populations; and “Closing the Gaps,” which measures differentials in performance among racial/ ethnic groups, socioeconomic backgrounds and other divisions.
Schools and districts are given grades on a 0-100 scale and an A-F scale for each category, along with a total grade.
Granbury ISD received grades of 84 (B) for Student Achievement, 81 (B) for School Progress and 79 (C) for Closing the Gaps. Overall, the district received a 83 (B) grade.
Tolar ISD received an 82 (B) for Student Achievement, an 84 (B) for School Progress and a 77 (C) for Closing the Gaps. The district received an overall grade of 82 (B).
Lipan ISD earned an 86 (B) for Student Achievement, an 82 (B) for School Progress and a 92 (A) for Closing the Gaps, and had an overall grade of 88 (B).
GISD GRADES
Most schools in Gran-bury ISD had grades similar to the overall district, but there were a few outliers.
Oak Woods School received the highest grades across the board. The elementary had a 91 (A) in Student Achievement, an 88 (B) in School Progress and a 96 (A) in Closing the Gaps for an overall grade of 93 (A).
Acton Elementary was close behind Oak Woods, receiving grades of 86 (B) in Student Achievement, 82 (B) in School Progress and 89 (B) in Closing the Gaps. The school had an overall rating of 87 (B).
Granbury Middle School received the lowest grades in the district in each category. GMS had a 69 (D) in Student Achievement, a 63 (D) in School Progress and a 59 (F) in Closing the Gaps for an overall grade of 66 (D).
ROOM TO IMPROVE
GISD Superintendent Jeremy Glenn said that while he’s happy with certain scores from the district, he recognizes there’s improvements to be made.
“We closed some achievement gaps, and our teachers did a lot of good things,” he said. “We don’t define ourselves by the state scores. We’re proud of how teachers and students performed, but certainly we all recognize there’s a lot of room for improvement.
“Our number one priority is seeing that academic growth.”
Glenn said GMS’ performance was “disappointing.”
“We expected to see bigger gains there,” he said. “We’re not satisfied.”
This week, former GHS assistant principal Tammy Clark was named the new principal of GMS, and Glenn said he hoped she could take the campus “to the next level.”
Glenn said the state metrics are just one of the indicators administrators use to evaluate their districts, and pointed to Oak Woods and AES being named National Schools of Character as signs that the district is receiving recognition on many levels. But he also said he recognizes the priority the TEA puts on these metrics.
He praised Oak Woods for achieving high grades on the report.
“Oak Woods and (principal) Donnie Cody, that’s outstanding leadership on his part, and a great teaching staff,” he said.
Overall, Glenn said he’s focused not on a specific grade for his district, but rather on consistent progress.
“We want to see constant growth,” he said. “It’s whenever we see regression that the red flags go up.”
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‘We don’t define ourselves by the state scores. We’re proud of how teachers and students performed, but certainly we all recognize there’s a lot of room for improvement.’
-GISD Superintendent Jeremy Glenn
