(October 14, 2008)—The Waco, Killeen, Belton and Temple school districts failed to meet the Adequate Yearly Progress requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act and Waco High School and Waco’s University High School are both running out of time to improve their performance, according to a preliminary report the Texas Education Agency released Tuesday.
The two Waco high schools are at what the TEA calls Stage 3 improvement status, which means parents must continue to be offered the option of sending their children to other schools.
Officials are also required to take additional corrective action, which could include replacing teachers, implementing a new curriculum, reducing campus-level management authority, appointing an outside expert to advise the campus, extending the school year or school day or restructuring the school’s organizational structure.
If the schools fail to meet performance standards during the current school year, the state could consider whether to reopen them as charter schools, replace the principals and staff, contract with a private management company to run the schools or to take over operation of the schools.
The Waco district is at Stage 1 of the five-stage process, which means parents must be notified of improvement status, how the district is addressing performance problems and to offer parents the options of sending students elsewhere.
The district fell short in student performance in reading and math and in its graduation rate.
In addition to the two high schools, eight other WISD schools failed to meet the standard.
The Killeen ISD missed the AYP because of student performance in reading and mathematics.
Fifteen Killeen schools failed to meet the AYP.
The Temple ISD missed the AYP because of student performance in reading and math.
Six of the district’s schools failed to meet the standard.
The Belton ISD missed the AYP because of student performance in mathematics.
Three schools in the district also fell short of the standards.
The Copperas Cove school district met the AYP.
Copperas Cove Junior High School was the only school in the district to miss the AYP.
The Midway ISD met the standard.
Only Midway Intermediate School missed the AYP because of student performance in math.
Belton ISD
Copperas Cove ISD
Killeen ISD
Midway ISD
Temple ISD
Waco ISD
Full List Of Districts And Campuses
The Texas Education Agency said Tuesday the number of schools at the most advanced level of failing federal improvement standards has increased tenfold over last year.
A total of 21 campuses reached "Stage 5" status in the federal School Improvement Program in 2008, after just two were categorized that way one year ago.
Such schools must immediately begin implementing restructuring plans that can include replacing most of the staff and becoming a charter school.
The state also recorded a drop in the number of schools that met the standards required by the federal No Child Left Behind law, which aims for all students to be proficient in English and math by 2013-14.
This year, 75 percent of the state's 8,195 campuses met the progress standards, a drop from 80 percent last year.
State Education Commissioner Robert Scott attributed part of the drop to new tests that led to districts increasing the number of students with disabilities assessed on grade level.
Scott says it will take districts some time to address fully the increasing expectations of the new state assessments for students with disabilities.
He referred to a group that in large part has been exempted from testing in the past.
Six Dallas high schools were in "Stage 5" failure, along with two high schools each in Austin and El Paso.
The mix included six charter schools.
Overall, 357 campuses were somewhere in the five stages of the School Improvement Program, an increase from 278 a year ago.
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