Reports on results driven accountability and winter Measures of Academic Progress (MAP) test results were presented at the Ector County ISD Board of Trustees workshop Tuesday night.
President Chris Stanley and trustee Dawn Miller were virtual. Trustee Bob Thayer was not present.
Executive Director of Research, Evaluation and Accountability Jessica Gore talked about results driven accountability, which will become part of state accountability standards.
Student groups monitored are emergent bilingual, other special populations, which includes homeless, foster and military, and special education.
The Texas Education Agency requires action on some of these results based on the determination level, but it doesn’t affect the overall A through F ratings at this time. These ratings have not been released yet because of the ongoing lawsuit against TEA filed by several school districts, including ECISD.
The determination level is the final result based on the results driven accountability from 2023.
Gore said the goal is zeros for performance levels across the board. She added that ECISD is improving year over year, but there are areas in special education, social studies and science that need attention.
The district is required to submit implementation strategies and a strategic support plan and “this really drives the work we do to make sure these metrics improve year over year for the three student groups,” Gore said.
ECISD began implementing the strategies submitted in the strategic support plan at the beginning of the year.
However, the plan wasn’t due to TEA until Feb. 23.
“Annual for ECISD in the 2023 RDA determination levels we saw growth across the board for the three student groups measured when compared to 2022,” Gore said.
“What that means is good things are happening for kids in the classrooms of ECISD,” she added.
Superintendent Scott said what’s important is that in 2020 before the pandemic results were skewed toward the 3s and 4s and today the district is skewed toward the zoos and 1s.
An update on special education was also presented.
Associate Superintendent of Curriculum and Instruction Lilia Nanez said 706 special education referrals were carried over from the previous school year.
The district has received 726 referrals this year. The number of initial evaluations completed is 571 and the number of evaluations in progress is 436.
The number of initial admission, review and dismissal meetings held is 481.
During spring break, the administrative annex was open every day, including Sunday, for nine days total. During that time, 73 students were evaluated.
Nanez and Executive Director of Special Services Mark Gabrylczyk thanked the board for investing $2 million in the evaluation process as the district has had to contract for diagnosticians and licensed specialists in school psychology.
Gabrylczyk said they have met monthly with TEA to discuss strategy because of the volume of evaluations that needed to be done.
He added that it is a very time intensive process and they are going to continue the work over the summer.
Nanez said several things, including changes in the law, have contributed to the backlog and ECISD is not the only district dealing with backlogs.
Muri said just because a student has not been tested does not mean they are not being served. Once a student has been referred they are served as a special education student.
