District misses first-ever Recognized status by 0.1 percent but 12 campuses improve

By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

Pflugerville ISD is appealing its Academically Acceptable accountability status after missing the completion requirement for Recognized status by a single student.

According to the Texas Education Agency’s accountability report release Friday, the district met or exceeded Recognized levels on all 25 Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills performance indicators, but it came up 0.1 percent short in the area of student completion.

“We were one student short of the 85 percent. It’s very frustrating. But we have gone back and checked each student, one by one, and we’ve actually found two students,” PISD Curriculum and Instruction Executive Director Barbara Gideon said. “One student was a graduate and was under-reported, and another student had some special education paperwork that indicated that that student would be a graduate and that student was coded as a dropout.”

The district filed the appeal with TEA commissioner Monday, but Gideon said the commissioner may decide that the opportunity for the districts to correct this data was not dealt with in a timely manner. If successful in its appeal, PISD will achieve Recognized status for the first time in the district’s history.

“We’re certainly hopeful that the commissioner will allow us to make the correction in that data,” Gideon said. “Our campuses, our teachers and principals and students have all worked so hard to show the gains in academic achievement, that we were very disappointed to have this 2-year-old graduation data have us miss and by such a tiny percent.”

The district may have narrowly missed the cut for Recognized status, but 15 of its campuses achieved Recognized designation – five more than in 2009. The district also scored with five Exemplary rated campuses, up two from last year.

“Pflugerville’s promise to our students and our community is that the District will prepare Each Child for Their Future in Our World, and I believe the gains our students have made in the last few years show we are closer than ever to fulfilling that promise,” Superintendent of Schools Charles Dupre said in a PISD release. “We know there is still much work to be done, but our teachers and campus leaders are doing a tremendous job focusing on the needs of individual children and helping them to achieve at the highest level possible.”

The district’s at-risk students showed gains in Math, Science and Social Studies, while also increasing or maintained performance in 21 of the 25 TAKS measures.

PISD also marked improvement in student Commended Performance measures by maintaining or growing performance in 15 of 25 measures. Commended Performance measures identify students who have performed at a level considerably above state passing standards and have shown a thorough understanding of the knowledge and skills at the grade level tested.

Gideon said it may be months before TEA rules on the district’s accountability rating appeal which TEA assigns based on as many as 35 indicators, with the lowest score determining the district’s rating.

“The student who is under-reported is on a state list as a dropout and we have proof that he was a graduate. So we feel pretty certain that we will be able to correct that,” Gideon said.

jrincon@pflugervillepflag.com