The Lubbock Independent School District has been notified by the Texas Education Agency that it has approved an accelerated campus excellence (ACE) turnaround program for Dunbar College Preparatory Academy, the district announced Thursday. Dunbar, a middle school in the Estacado High School feeder pattern with grades 6-8, has struggled in recent years to meet state standards. Last month, Lubbock ISD Superintendent Kathy Rollo wrote an op-ed in the Avalanche-Journal promoting the ACE program, saying “Dunbar isn’t meeting the educational needs of its students” as per the standards set by the Texas Education Agency. view article

Three of the five Transformation Waco schools that are part of an in-district charter system designed to improve student achievement showed gains in reading and math scores over last year’s state standardized test scores, according to preliminary data released Wednesday by the Texas Education Agency. view article

For the fourth straight year, Los Fresnos CISD has been selected as an Honor Roll School District by the Educational Results Partnership (ERP). The selection is the result of an extensive analysis of student data for every public school and school district in Texas. Los Fresnos CISD was one of only six school districts in Texas named to the Honor Roll. The District was one of only three to have received the honor all four years since the inception of the award in Texas in 2015-16. view article

Parents now have access to their child's state-issued STAAR exam results, as well as other resources to help them stay up to speed during the summer months, the agency announced Wednesday. A unique code for parents is to be distributed by their child's school, giving them access. The Texas Education Agency said parents will be able to see how their child answered questions on the test and how parents can provide additional support at home.  view article

Officials with the Ysleta Independent School District announced that 13 of the district’s schools have been named to the 2018-2019 Texas Honor Roll, the most of any school district in the El Paso region. “We are tremendously proud of our Honor Roll campuses, which continuously demonstrate the kind of innovative instruction and leadership that is needed to ensure student success,” said Ysleta ISD Superintendent Dr. Xavier De La Torre. “This recognition once again proves that our bold, challenging, and ambitious approach to public education is not only yielding high academic achievement, but setting a gold standard for the entire El Paso region.” view article

The Robstown Independent School District received quite the recognition Wednesday for their dual-credit programs. The school district was awarded a nearly $200,000 grant by the Texas Workforce Commission to focus on supporting high demand jobs through the "Jobs and Education for Texans" grant program. view article

A Northside ISD graduate is proving the doubters wrong. Aaliyah Glover received her diploma from Stevens High School. However, her father wasn't at the ceremony. He's serving a life prison sentence for capital murder. “I was more prone to be a teenage parent, a high school dropout or being incarcerated just like my father,” she said. view article

School district finances are on somewhat marshy ground until property appraisal districts firm up assessed values for the coming tax year, but school boards have to make budget “guesstimates” anyway, said Cheryl Hernandez, Beaumont ISD’s chief financial officer, after guiding the local board through the predicted numbers on Tuesday. The Texas Legislature changed the method in which it will support the state’s 1,000-plus school districts and property owners will see a state-mandated reduction in their local school district tax rate. view article

The Dallas Independent School District is now working with the State Board of Education and the Texas Education Agency to resolve a class ranking snafu at one of its most prestigious schools. Days before graduation at Woodrow Wilson High School, a number of students were informed of new class rankings. Graduating senior Jackson Hansen, who was salutatorian when the school released rankings in January, was told he went from number two to number six.  view article

It’s rare — particularly in urban school districts — for all the ingredients for success to emerge at the same time. That’s precisely the encouraging position Dallas ISD finds itself in after scoring breakthroughs on many of the barriers that persistently hurt its chances to help students win. The district is seeing remarkable growth in testing.  It has more financial contributions — locally and from the state — than it has had in a while.  Its keystone reforms are in place. view article

Come the start of a new school year, class rankings will be a thing of the past for students enrolled at Friendswood High School. The Friendswood Independent School District Board of Trustees voted unanimously Monday to do away with a ranking system for high school students, except for students who are in the top 10% of their class. view article

Starting with the 2019-20 school year, Friendswood ISD will no longer be administering a class rank to the whole class. FISD’s board of trustees had its second and final reading on eliminating class rank June 10. The board unanimously voted to change the board policy on class rank. The district would still rank the top 10% internally to send to colleges, as is required by state law. Students in the top 10% would also be notified of that certification. view article

From under performing schools to top performing charter schools, Bethany Solis says IDEA Schools are where all children can succeed and that they are just what Travis Elementary needs to get back on track. ''When you walk into an IDEA School you should sort of breath, feel, taste, touch all things' college prep, all things about joyful learning,'' says the Executive Director of IDEA Permian Basin. A task that takes two main ideals: ''total focus on teaching and learning and a really powerful school culture and there is a lot that goes into that but that's what it really boils down to,'' says Solis view article

Marlin school district Superintendent Michael Seabolt was suspended by the district’s board of managers on Wednesday, but his attorneys argue the action is invalid because of how the board handled the vote.  That board voted 4-1 to suspend Seabolt and investigate his performance, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported. Assistant Superintendent Remy Godfrey will now serve as acting superintendent. view article

Harlandale school officials are huddling with attorneys for the district, deciding how to fight a takeover by the Texas Education Agency. News 4 Trouble Shooter Jaie Avila broke the story Friday night that a TEA investigation is recommending new leadership be put in charge. Back in November Avila obtained a preliminary version of the investigation, now the final report is out and it is just as critical of Harlandale. It recommends the school board and superintendent be replaced by a conservator and board of managers. Investigators with the Texas Education Agency allege Harlandale's school board violated state requirements when awarding construction and service contracts, failed to oversee district finances, and violated open meetings law by communicating with each other via text messages. view article

A diverse, talented and record-breaking class of 2019 at Shadow Creek High School celebrated commencement Saturday by remembering the past and looking forward to the future. As the Class of 2019 looked on, student leaders spoke to them, remembering the road to graduation. “This was our year,” said Class Historian Bianca Montemayor. “We did it. We are the great Shadow Creek High School Class of 2019.”  view article

The national high school graduation rate reached an all-time high of 84.6 percent in 2017, up from 79 percent in 2010 and 71 percent since 2001. Hispanic, Black, and low-income students have continued to drive this increase with Hispanic students reaching an 80 percent graduation rate in 2017, Black students climbing to a 77.8 percent graduation rate, and low-income students reaching a 78.3 percent graduation rate. This progress over the last decade and a half means that more than 3.5 million additional students have graduated on-time instead of dropping out. Despite these gains, progress has slowed, signaling the need for a concerted and coordinated response at the national, state, community, and school levels to meet the needs of every young person and close remaining gaps. view article

Students with Central Independent School District are well on their way to completing a mission assigned to them by the highest space authority in America: to create the model of a helmet to better protect astronauts from radiation in the deepest reaches of space. While most kids are on summer vacation, sleeping in, swimming, going to camp and on vacation, the “Central Space Station” team has been having a different kind of fun. Even after the school year ended, the team researched topics like solar flare radiation and material that would shield astronauts against radiation. view article

A Pharr-San Juan-Alamo ISD (PSJA ISD) graduate was one of 10 seniors from across the Rio Grande Valley named a recipient of the Border Patrol Youth of the Year Award and a $1,500 scholarship for her post-secondary education. PSJA Early College High School Graduate Melissa Lugo was honored at the Border Patrol “Head of the Class/Youth of the Year” Ceremony at the Pharr Events Center held May 30, 2019. view article

From sports teams to theater productions, high schools are full of extracurricular activities for students to pursue. But there is one after-school program you may not know about that is growing in popularity: It involves varsity teams competing not on the gridiron, but over the grill iron.  Chef Mike Erickson is using barbecue to teach some big life lessons in the small Texas town of Burnet. At Burnet High School, students cook in a state-of-the-art kitchen —  worth a quarter of a million dollars — to create what some would consider the holy grail of Texas grilling. view article

The first thing you see when you look at Irma Lerma Rangel Young Women’s Leadership School is that its student body is entirely female. The second is that it’s doing remarkably well.  It’s doing so well, in fact, that the school again finds itself ranked among the top public high schools in Texas, according to a recent report.  At this point, that shouldn’t surprise us. But it persistently does because so many of the students Rangel educates could be stuck in a cycle of poverty that too many students in Dallas struggle to escape. view article

Utah's top education officials have cancelled a contract with a Minnesota-based standardized testing company amid a flurry of technological glitches during the first year of use. The Utah State Board of Education voted Thursday night to rescind a 10-year, $44-million contract it signed last year with Questar Assessment Inc. view article

East Texas high school students know their U.S. history, according to State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness end-of-course results. Only one area school, Kilgore High School, scored below 90 percent in the “approaches grade level” category on the U.S. history test. Union Grove High School is the only school in the area to score at least 90 percent approaches on each test. view article

The Socorro Independent School District recently recognized 68 students in grades K-12 whose work was published at the 2019 SISD Literary Anthology celebration. The event, featured first-place winners, their families, district administrators, staff, and special guest authors Elizabeth Zamarripa-Lopez and Eleanor Coldwell. “The Literary Anthology luncheon is a wonderful event because we honor the amazing writers in our school district,” said Yvonne Dominguez, instructional officer for English Language Arts. view article

River Tomlinson is used to jumping hurdles as the Whitehouse native ran the 110-meter and 300-meter hurdles in high school. On Thursday, he got a huge assist on overcoming another hurdle — college tutition — as Tomlinson was named the winner of the Fifth Annual Earl Campbell Tyler Rose Award Scholarship. Although Campbell was ill and could not attend, his son, Christian Campbell, presented Tomlinson the $5,000 scholarship during a luncheon on Thursday in the Rose Room at Willow Brook Country Club. Tomlinson graduated as salutatorian of his class at Whitehouse High School. He had a near perfect SAT score and has chosen a major of biophysics. His education will begin at University of Texas at Austin with plans to earn a PhD. view article

“How suburbanites cheat their way into Booker T. Washington,” an impressive investigative report by the Advocate’s East Dallas-based Keri Mitchell, stung a school district that had seen more accolades than arrows in the past year. The Advocate’s May 17 report exposed the sneaky tactics parents who live outside Dallas ISD have used to secure their teens a spot in the nationally renowned Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts. Some took out apartment leases for a month or two to show residency. Some worked deals with DISD residents to pay their utility bills in order to get the conniving family’s name attached to the bill. Others lied their way in by manufacturing fake facts and documents. view article

Research showing that reading passages on Texas standardized tests were years above grade level inspired calls for action this legislative session.  Lawmakers responded by passing a bill to study the matter further.   view article

Millions of U.S. students take standardized tests every year with the sole goal of helping testing companies make better tests. They are called “field tests,” and students take them at different times of year — often in spring and early summer — to test questions so that companies can determine whether they are constructed well enough to use on future exams. New York is completing its field tests this week. Kids don’t get a grade but take them anyway, sometimes without their parents’ knowledge. view article

Emmett J. Conrad High School’s top student, Rooha Haghar, hoped to make a statement about shooting victims during her valedictorian speech over the weekend. But, as a video posted by Haghar shows, her microphone went silent after she said, "To Trayvon Martin and Tamir Rice and all the other children who became victims of injustice,” at Saturday's graduation. view article

East Texas area high school students showed an overall decline on state standardized tests this spring, according to preliminary test results from the Texas Education Agency.  The districts’ 2019 STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) EOC (end of course) preliminary passing percentages mostly declined in three of the five test subject areas for high school students. view article

The regular school year might be finished, but for some students, the learning hasn’t ended. About 400 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten bilingual, ESL and dual language students from 12 of the district’s elementary schools have been meeting at Kemp-Carver Elementary School since May 29 to establish a foundation in their home language, which for many is Spanish. Also on the campus are about 80 migrant students who are getting more lessons in math. view article

The computer lab in the Calhoun Middle School Library buzzed Thursday with the conversations of students, parents and instructors during Denton ISD’s last day of Raspberry Pi camp as students showed off what they created during the four-day program. The camp, in its fifth year, taught middle school students how to program a Raspberry Pi — a computer system the size of one’s hand — to do whatever they wanted. view article

Texas, a state that emphasizes workforce pathways for its students in K-12, is considering legislation that would require the Texas Education Agency to track career readiness as an indicator on the state's school accountability system. Bill HB 1388, pending in committee after a recent public hearing, would add an indicator for the count of students with successful completion of a "coherent sequence of career and technology courses." According to a legislative analysis, currently, the state's grading system allows schools to count only those students who have finished a career certification program, a high bar for high schoolers; that doesn't account for students who are making progress toward earning a certificate. view article

Texas school districts received state accountability ratings last fall, and while Clear Creek ISD earned high marks, district officials claim the state’s system is too reliant on high-stakes testing, does not give a clear idea of how the district is improving, and fails to include factors that affect performance. As a result, the district in late March released its community-based accountability report for the 2017-18 school year. It includes several data points from parent survey results to graduation rates to give the district, its students and their parents a more complete picture of districtwide performance, officials said. view article

In the final board meeting of the 2018-2019 school year, College Station trustees approved a new math course that will begin in August. The new course is designed to help students who come to the district from other countries and who have limited English proficiency and limited math knowledge. view article