62 Tarrant County schools must allow students to transfer

The number of low-performing schools in Arlington and Fort Worth that must give students the option to transfer increased slightly this year, according to a state report released Friday.

Fort Worth went from 38 to 39 schools on the annual Public Education Grant, or PEG, list for 2015-16, while Arlington increased from eight to nine.

Statewide, 1,199 schools are on the list of the state’s worst-performing schools, up 892 last year — an increase of 34 percent. In the Dallas school district, the number increased from 59 to 71. Houston jumped from 53 to 86 schools, a spike of 62 percent.

In Tarrant County, the number of schools on the list remained the same at 62, though some were different. Birdville, for example, had two schools on the PEG list last year and none this year. Castleberry, which was not on the list last year, has one this year.

Other Tarrant County districts with schools on the list are: Crowley (6), Everman (3), Grapevine-Colleyville (1) and Keller (3).

Of the 39 schools in Fort Worth, 25 are elementary schools and four are high schools — Dunbar, Eastern Hills, Polytechnic and Wyatt.

“While we are not satisfied with our ratings, we as a district are doing everything we can to improve the educational opportunities for each and every student in the Fort Worth ISD,” said Pat Linares, interim superintendent. “We are committed to providing a high quality education for our students and look forward to the improvements that our initiatives will bring this year.”

Campuses made the list if 50 percent or more students failed the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness (STAAR) in two of the past three years or were rated “Improvement Required” in state accountability ratings in 2013 or 2014, according to the Texas Education Agency.

So schools that received “Met Standard” ratings by the state this year could still be on the PEG list if they were rated “Improvement Required” the previous year.

Educators have criticized the ratings because of the time it takes to get off the list.

School districts must notify parents of students who attend the low-performing schools by Feb. 1, informing them that their children can transfer to other schools in the 2015-16 school year.

The state will provide districts with additional funding for students who transfer.

The program was created by the Legislature in 1995 and allows children attending schools on the PEG list to transfer to higher-performing schools within the district.

Students can also apply to attend schools in other districts.

This story was originally published December 19, 2014 at 8:22 PM with the headline "62 Tarrant County schools must allow students to transfer."