TEA Ratings Good News for ECISD and MISD
By: Stephanie Sobic
Updated: July 29, 2010
The Ector County Independent School District was scored academically unacceptable last year. The district's completion rate had a lot to do with this low grade.
But, it was good news today, coming from the Texas Education Agency. ECISD was rated academically acceptable for 2010 and it turns out the district went above and beyond to get that new rating. In fact, as a whole the district was just shy of getting an even higher mark.
A lot was accomplished during ECISD’s 2009-2010 school year and no school in the district was rated unacceptable.
"I think it’s important to note that, of those campuses, Bonham and Crockett were academically unacceptable last year and went all the way to recognized rating," says Wendy Hines with ECISD.
TEA rates all schools and the district as a whole in four levels; a top score is exemplary, followed by recognized to acceptable, to finally unacceptable. The district as a whole went from unacceptable to acceptable. In fact, ECISD was just one point off from being called recognized. The TEA looks at about 36 different indicators to come up with a rating, indicators being TAKS results and student completion rates.
"It's in some of the indicators that we fell down, so we started tackling those, so we're really beginning to prioritize our needs," explains ECISD Superintendent Hector Mendez.
One of the biggest indicators was completion rate. Mendez said the district really had to be hands-on to get drop-outs back to class.
"Getting those students who had not reported back, who would have been counted against us if they were not enrolled by a certain date in October," says Mendez.
According to Mendez, completion rate was the anchor that gave the district an unacceptable rating in 2009. But, that's not the case anymore and Mendez believes next year the district's rating will improve again.
It's also good news for MISD! Last school year the district received an unacceptable rating, but this year MISD pulled it off and was rated academically acceptable.
