By Toni Garrard Clay/AISD Communications Coordinator
As has been the case for many years now, all five of Athens ISD’s campuses have “met standard,” according to the Texas Education Agency. Furthermore, the district as a whole was scored a “B.”
The grade is a result of the state agency’s new A-F Public School Accountability System, which uses pages of complicated calculations to reduce thousands of data points — mainly STAAR test results and end-of-course exams — into a single letter grade.
“This is a win,” said AISD Superintendent Blake Stiles. “Ultimately, we’d like to have an A, of course, but there’s no denying a B is a great result. That being said, we should all keep these scores in perspective. Anyone who has followed state testing for these many years knows there are no measures in place that take into consideration the challenges many of our students face to meet their academic potential. If that was the case, I know we’d have an A.”
In all, seven academic distinctions were awarded to AISD. At the high school, those were earned in the following areas: mathematics, science, social studies, postsecondary readiness, and comparative closing the gaps. At South Athens Elementary, distinctions were earned in postsecondary readiness and comparative closing the gaps.
“We’ve been studying this system for a year. It may seem simple to the average person to assign a letter grade, but the math behind that grade is very complex,” said Jami Ivey, assistant superintendent of curriculum, instruction and accountability. “There are about 12,000 data points to calculate, and every school has its own challenges and its own demographics. To score a B as a district is major accomplishment.”
