Georgetown ISD was rated an overall B by the Texas Education Agency Wednesday. The agency rates districts and schools on a A-F scale to help identify where districts can improve education quality in student achievement, school progress and closing gaps between student populations. GISD received a B for student achievement, a C for school progress and a C in closing student gaps. The student achievement and school progress takes into account how well students perform on the STAAR exam, a series of state-mandated standardized tests that assesses student knowledge at their grade level, but does not account for the students who test out of the STAAR exam due to high PSAT and SAT scores. GISD pays for every student in grades 8-11 to take the PSAT and SAT, said Melinda Brasher, GISD director of communications. If a student receives a certain score, they are exempt from the STAAR exam but are marked as students who meet the grade qualifications rather than masters, which many of the students would have scored. This affects how the district does in the overall TEA grade. "[GISD students] outperformed the state average on PSAT and SAT scores and for it not to count the same way in our overall ratings is tough," Brasher said. "It’s the right thing for kids. We have kids that have that resource if they want to go to college that they may not have had before." Each school was also given a score based on how well they are preparing students for high school or success after high school in the same categories—student achievement, school progress and closing student gaps. Individual schools are rated as met standard or needs improvement.

Breakdown of score by school:

Learn about each school's score by clicking the link.

• Carver Elementary—met standard
• Cooper Elementary—met standard
• Ford Elementary—met standard
• Frost Elementary—met standard
• McCoy Elementary—met standard
• Mitchell Elementary—improvement required
• Pickett Elementary—met standard
• Purl Elementary—met standard
• Village Elementary—met standard
• Benold Middle—met standard
• Forbes Middle—improvement required
• Tippit Middle—met standard
• Wagner Middle—improvement required
• Georgetown High—met standard
• East View High—met standard
• Richarte High—met standard

What does this mean for college?

Southwestern University does not consider STAAR results in its admission process, spokeswoman Dinah Ritchie said. Instead, the school requires either an ACT or SAT score and if both are taken, they will take the highest score, Ritchie said.