Original Post Date: August 15, 2022
On August 15, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) released accountability ratings for school districts and schools for the first time since 2019. Schools and districts have been labeled Not Rated: Declared State of Disaster for 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Districts have been carrying their 2019 scores for the last two years.
As a district for 2022, PBTISD received an overall rating of a B (84) from TEA. This is a major improvement over the D rating the District received in 2019. In 2019, the District was deemed to be in the bottom two percent of all school districts in the state. With its new rating, PBTISD now joins the top 77 percent of school districts!
“We are proud of the improvements and strides these ratings show for PBTISD,” said Superintendent Brent Jaco. “These ratings truly show the hard work our teachers put in to improve instruction during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. These scores could not have been obtained without everyone’s hard work and dedication to support our students!”
Comparably, schools in PBTISD have shown great strides towards improvement and representative effects of the pandemic over the last two years. Pecos High School earned a B rating for the 2022 school year. In 2019, PHS was not rated due to data reporting concerns. Haynes Elementary maintained its C rating from 2019 but grew 8 points, from a 70 to a 78. Crockett Middle School showed the greatest improvement receiving a C for 2022. This is a sixteen-point improvement over their “F” rating in 2019; they moved from a 55 to a 71.
Austin Elementary will not receive a rating in 2022 due to Senate Bill 1365, which allows additional time for schools to recover from the impacts of COVID-19.
Pecos Kindergarten and Austin Elementary receive the same rating as students in pre-kindergarten, and kindergarten does not participate in state testing.
“Over the last two years the District has carried its pre-pandemic rating that was not a reflection of the hard work and dedication happening in the classroom,” said Chief Academic Officer Dr. Karen Matt. “We are so proud of our PBTISD teachers and students; these ratings show the sky is the limit!”
Ratings are a way to determine how well a school prepares students for the next grade level and their success after high school. Teachers and schools also use the rating information to improve practices and instructional approaches for the next school year and beyond. Ratings look into how your child’s school performs in different areas, including STAAR Performance, English language acquisition; Graduation Rates; and College, Career, and Military Readiness (CCMR).
Overall ratings are calculated based on performance in three key areas. TEA takes the higher score between how much students know (Student Achievement) or how much better students are doing than last year or peers in similar schools (School Progress). TEA then considers whether performance gaps exist among different groups of students (Closing the Gaps). PBTISD has shown much improvement with the latest ratings despite the challenges over the last two years with the COVID-19 pandemic.