Dateline: August 17, 2001  11:00 AM

GCISD Releases Impressive District TAAS Scores - District Receives "Recognized" Rating From State

Fifteen of 17 GCISD campuses have been designated “Exemplary” for 2001, the highest rating given by the Texas Education Agency.  Within the last three years, 100 percent of our schools and district have earned the highest rating.  In addition, the district received the state’s rating of “Recognized” based on academics and dropout rate. Texas districts officially received their accountability ratings from the TEA today.  The Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) report is published in October, and districts receive their school report cards in November.  

GCISD campuses receiving the highest rating of “Exemplary” include Colleyville-Heritage High, Grapevine High, Colleyville Middle, Cross Timbers Middle, Grapevine Middle, Heritage Middle, and the following elementaries:  Bear Creek, Bransford, Cannon, Colleyville, Dove, Grapevine, Heritage, O. C. Taylor, and Timberline.  The two elementary campuses receiving the second-highest rating of “Recognized” for 2001 are Glenhope and Silver Lake. 

Kathryn Kee, assistant superintendent for Instructional Services, said she is very proud of the district and the campuses’ performance, which demonstrate students’ continued hard work. “All our campuses had a great showing this year, and results continue to be at an outstanding level of which our entire GCISD community should be excited,” said Kee.

“Instruction will analyze the findings and see how can improve our scores even more next year.”   

The report of the district’s spring 2001 TAAS scores showed outstanding performance across all areas.  The spotlight is on the district’s math scores, which are particularly impressive across the board, but especially in grades 4-8 in which all scores exceeded 99 percent of all students passing. 

The results are comparable to last year’s scores, and in some areas exceed past years’ achievements.  Kee indicated that had the criteria remained the same as what was used for 2000 state ratings, the district would have again been “Exemplary.”  

“Our district has continued its expectation of educational excellence and has once again performed in an exemplary fashion,” said Kee.  “The state rating criteria continues to be modified, and the method used to rank student groups was altered for 2001.  That change is what led to our district being rated ‘Recognized’ for 2001.  Extra effort will be made on those identified populations to ensure student success and mastery of TAAS, and I believe we will achieve the ‘Exemplary’ status at all campuses and our district for 2002. 

To be rated exemplary, a district must have at least 90 percent of students in all student groups pass the TAAS.  Students are classified into a group when at least 50 students comprise a category by ethnicity or economic level.  Previously, a student group consisted of at least 200 students to comprise a category.  

GCISD Spring 2001 TAAS Scores (all students)

A seven-year comparison of TAAS scores by school is available in Adobe Acrobat format on the district’s website at www.gcisd-k12.org/pr/images/taas_chart.pdf or as Microsoft Word Document attached to this email.