The ratings were released April 24 after a delay due to lawsuits. TEA officials said the methods of calculating 2022-23 ratings were “updated to more accurately reflect performance.”
For the 2021-22 school year, when Texas school districts last received ratings through the A-F system, Judson ISD earned a “B” rating.
How we got here
The state’s A-F accountability system was designed to measure how much students are learning in each grade and whether or not they are ready for the next grade, the TEA website states.
The release of the ratings follows an April 3 ruling by Texas’ 15th Court of Appeals, which overturned a lower court’s injunction that had blocked the 2023 ratings for over a year. In September 2023, over 100 school districts sued TEA Commissioner Mike Morath, arguing the agency’s revamped accountability system was “unlawful” and would unfairly harm school districts.
“For far too long, families, educators and communities have been denied access to information about the performance of their schools, thanks to frivolous lawsuits paid for by tax dollars filed by those who disagreed with the statutory goal of raising career readiness expectations to help students,” Morath said in a news release.
The breakdown
According to the TEA’s latest accountability report, 9.5% of traditional school districts across Texas earned an “A” rating, while 42.4% earned a “B.” About 33% received a “C,” 13.7% earned a “D” and 1.2% earned an “F.”
Judson ISD total student enrollment in 2022-23 was 25,818 students. Of those, 69.9% were economically disadvantaged, 15.5% were in special education programs, and 11.5% were emergent bilingual students, TEA data shows. The average attendance rate in 2022-23 was 90.2%, and 35.7% of Judson ISD students were chronically absent, missing 10% or more of the 2022-23 school year.
Of the Judson ISD campuses that received ratings:
- 2 earned an A
- 4 earned a B
- 5 earned a C
- 12 earned a D
- 7 earned an F
One of the schools to earn a “B” was Coronado Village Elementary School, which will be closing at the end of the school year with students and staff relocating to the new Selma Elementary School.
Judson ISD schools with 70% or more economically disadvantaged populations averaged a 71%, while campuses where less than 70% of the students were economically disadvantaged averaged a 74%, according to TEA data.
Elementary schools averaged a 67%, middle schools averaged a 65.6% and high schools averaged a 79.8%.
The TEA report also included a “What If” score for 2021-22, applying 2021-22 school district results to updated standards. Judson’s 2021-22 What If score was a “C” with 74%, down from the “B” rating and 81% score earned that year.
Judson ISD did not respond with a comment by press time.
What’s next
The TEA remains blocked from issuing ratings for the 2023-24 school year due to a separate lawsuit, which is pending in the state appeals court. Morath also said the TEA intends to release ratings for 2024-25 on Aug. 15, per state law.
“A-F ratings are very public, and so that is a leadership challenge that our leaders bear, but this is the cross that we bear for being publicly funded and having the public’s children in our schools. It’s up to us to operate with the highest degree of transparency to deliver the best outcomes that we can for our kids,” Morath said April 22.
Hannah Norton contributed to this report.
