January 5, 2017



TO:            NISD Parents and Caregivers
 
FROM:       Ryder Warren, Superintendent
 
SUBJECT:  New Texas Accountability System
 
 
I hope everyone had a wonderful break, and know that I am very proud of how our students have returned to work - I'm seeing great efforts at our schools.
 
As both the superintendent and as a parent of NISD, I need to make everyone aware of an important issue coming to all Texas public school families.  By legislative mandate, the Texas Education Agency is releasing "preliminary" accountability ratings for NISD and for our individual schools.  I know many of you have been tracking the new accountability system that has been designated as the Texas A-F Accountability System.  Under this system, all Texas public school districts and individual campuses will receive a letter grade - A, B, C, D, or F - mostly based on the state's achievement test (the STAAR).  These letter grades will be given in four different academic areas (or domains), and this system goes into effect with five domains during the 2017-18 school year.  As a preview to the system's introduction, TEA has been mandated to release the preliminary ratings to show stakeholders where districts and schools stand right now based on student achievement and data from the last school year (2015-16).
 
I'm providing this link so you will have an understanding of both the system itself and NISD's stance regarding it.  Also included are the preliminary district and campus scores for you to review.  From this information, I do want to make a couple of points for you to consider, which are:  
  1. Please keep in mind the ratings are not official.  They are based on last year's data and are an "estimate" of what would be assigned to the district and campuses IF the law and/or system was currently in place.
     
  2. Keeping with NISD's Legislative Priorities for the upcoming session in Austin, we absolutely question the validity of this system.  Any educational accountability system that services a state of more than 5 million students has to be based on more than one test.  None of our NISD teachers, who we are so proud of, would assign a grade to students based on one form of assessment - every time they assess those students.
     
  3. NISD leadership will be working with local and statewide policy makers this legislative session to create an alternate accountability system that takes into consideration learning differences in children to give parents and stakeholders a true view of how effective (or not) schools are educating our children.
Please follow the link for more information on this system, and if you have any questions, feel free to contact NISD's Curriculum and Instruction Department at 817-215-0000.  As usual, thank you for the support you give our children and the support you give our schools.  Working together, we are truly creating a system that is second to none in its service to our students.

Sincerely,
 
Ryder Warren, Ed.D.
Superintendent of Schools


To view Northwest ISD's 
preliminary accountability ratings 
and for additional information,  visit
www.nisdtx.org/A-FRatings
.