Texas school districts, campuses won’t receive letter grades this year, TEA says
The Texas Education Agency announced Thursday that all Texas school districts and campuses will forgo school accountability grades this year due to school closures brought on by the novel coronavirus’ spread.
Instead, districts and campuses will receive a special “Not Rated: Declared State of Disaster” rating for the 2020 year.
“While we continuously work to ensure our ‘A-F’ Accountability System paints an accurate picture of school performance, these unprecedented circumstances have forced all of us to change and adapt,” TEA Commissioner Mike Morath said in a statement Thursday. “Given we won’t have underlying information to assess performance, we won’t be assigning accountability letter grades for the 2019-20 school year.”
The decision follows the agency’s approval from the U.S. Department of Education on Monday to waive statewide testing and accountability requirements under the federal acts that require them.
Districts have received similar special designations in the wake of natural disasters, such as when Hurricane Harvey hit the Texas coast in 2017. Last year was the first year that individual campuses received letter grades from the state.
The “A-F” accountability grades are calculated by evaluating schools in three areas: student achievement, school progress and their ability to close gaps around disparities that may exist for different racial groups, economically disadvantaged students and more.
In mid-March, Gov. Greg Abbott took the unprecedented step of waiving STAAR test requirements for the 2019-20 school year, just weeks before the mandated tests were set to begin. And Abbott announced Tuesday that Texas schools would remain closed until at least May 4.
A news release Thursday said that the extended school closures made it impossible for TEA to measure district and campus performance through traditional means.
Guidance from the agency notes that while letter grades will not be issued, the pause will not constitute a reset on sanctions that may result from consecutive years of low performance.
An overall or domain grade of “D” or “F” in 2019 that is followed by a similar “D” or “F” grade in 2021 will be considered consecutive, according to TEA’s guidance.
A school may earn an overall rating of an F for five years and a D for six before there’s mandatory state intervention.
Any previously ordered sanctions or interventions should continue to be implemented, the guidance notes. However, if a campus has been ordered to prepare a turnaround plan, it is “strongly encouraged, but not required, to implement the approved turnaround plan” in the wake of the “Not Rated” designation, according to the guidance.
In the light of Abbott eliminating STAAR test requirements for the school year, individual school districts will have the discretion to determine if students graduate or move up a grade level. Fort Worth ISD announced Thursday students will receive a pass or fail grade for the remainder of the school year, and that class ranks will be based on grades received during the first semester.
This story was originally published April 2, 2020 at 6:44 PM.
