WACO, Texas — Eight Waco ISD campuses received failing grades in the state's latest accountability ratings, and district leaders are now outlining steps they say will turn those scores around.
The Texas Education Agency grades schools using several benchmarks, including student performance on standardized tests, academic growth, how well campuses close achievement gaps for at-risk students, and — at the high school level — college, career and military readiness. Repeated failing grades at a single campus can eventually trigger state intervention across the district.
Waco ISD Superintendent Dr. Tiffany Spicer said the letter grades do not define the district.
"When people say, 'oh my gosh, this letter, um, does it sting?' Maybe, yeah, but does it faze me? No, because I know we're doing the right work," Spicer said.
Spicer said students across the district are achieving at high levels despite the ratings.
"One thing does not define who our district is. When you look at a student, they're not a number. There's so much more than that. So, I want to make sure that everybody knows that our students are amazing. They're doing great things now, even in this space. But even when they leave us, we have students going to Harvard, they're going to UT, they're going to A&M, they're going to Baylor—they're going to all the places. I know our students are benefiting and I also know that we're making a difference in our community," Spicer said.
One of the state's evaluation benchmarks measures how well campuses close achievement gaps for at-risk students. To address that, Waco ISD has created a new at-risk specialist position designed to identify students who may need additional academic or personal support.
"We've also created another position called an at-risk specialist. As you know, we have about 88-89% low socioeconomic status students, and so, sometimes their needs—there are at-risk indicators that we are accustomed to. There's about 17 of those things. And so, those are students who, for whatever reason, are at risk of not being successful. And so, what we do is we have people in place who monitor those students, and then we bring all the people to the table and talk about wraparound services," Spicer said.
District leaders said they are working to strengthen support for both students and teachers, with the goal of improving campus ratings across Waco ISD.
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