GISD to address STAAR levels, reading News Staff Tue, 02/20/2024 - 12:00 pm
- (THOMAS WALLNER | THE GRAHAM LEADER) Graham ISD Director of Curriculum and Instruction Gary Browning presents the Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR) to the GISD Board of Trustees during a public hearing Wednesday, Feb. 14. Browning presented district-level data with the board.
Thomas Wallner editor@grahamleader.com
A public hearing was held last week for the 2022-2023 Texas Academic Performance Report (TAPR) for Graham ISD, which serves as a means for school districts to analyze their assessment results and monitor progress year to year.
Graham ISD Director of Curriculum and Instruction Gary Browning presents the TAPR from the Texas Education Agency to the GISD Board of Trustees during a public hearing Wednesday, Feb. 14.
Browning presented district-level data with the board and stated that though the report had two years of data, the data between the years was not an accurate comparison.
“They don’t correlate because the test changed, the format of STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) changed, the passing standards changed and all students took the test online last year, which was different than in previous years,” Browning said. “So I don’t feel like there’s a strong correlation between the 2022 data and the 2023 data.”
In the report it provides STAAR exam performance and participation, progress, student and staff information and more from 2022 and 2023 compared to the state and Region 9, which is made of 37 school districts.
“I really want to work on student performance at meets and masters grade levels in all subjects and grade levels pretty much (for STAAR),” Browning said. “Also, a priority for my team is improving reading. We have made a lot of improvements over the last five years in reading. We had a group come in and assess our reading program. We changed (the) curriculum twice in the last eight years.”
The third grade reading and math scores for STAAR fell below the state and region for 2023.
“Our third grade teachers this year have worked so hard to get those scores up and to improve learning and I think through their efforts, and what we’ve seen of the efforts that they have made, I feel like those numbers will be there this year. But that has been an area of focus for us this year,” Browning said.
Fourth grade reading was above the state and the region in all categories except at the masters grade level where it matched the state at 22%. Fourth grade math showed similar results in the report.
“For a majority of the measures, we are above the region in all and the state in masters, but just below the state in approaches and meets,” Browning said.
Fifth grade reading and math saw increases over both the state and the region at all levels.
“The math in grade five was nine percentage points above the state and six percentage points above the region in their approaches grade level, eight percentage points above the state and nine percentage points above the region in meets, and three and five masters. So extremely strong data in fifth grade,” he said.
Browning said science at the fifth grade and eighth grade level and in general across the district has been a focus to strengthen.
“While this data is still just below the state level in the first two measures (for fifth grade), it is above the state level and the region level at the masters grade level, which shows the rigor of instruction is there,” Browning said. “We have to get more students in at the passing or meets grade level standard.”
Browning said that sixth grade reading was also not at the state or regional level with a 12% difference at the masters grade level for the state and 6% difference for the region. Sixth grade math also did not meet the state or regional levels, except at the masters grade level where it matched the region level of 12%.
At the Graham Junior High School grade level, eighth grade reading was lower than the state and region in all categories. Seventh and eighth grade reading and math are looking to improve their meets and masters performance.
“So (that’s) the upper passing standards and really that’s the trend that we want to focus on throughout the grade levels is to improve the percentage of our students who perform at meets and masters,” Browning said.
Browning said eighth grade science has seen increases over the last several years.
“Our checkpoint data and our reading assessment support that there has been growth there in both fifth grade and eighth grade science over the last several years,” he said. “Eighth grade social studies is an area of strength for us. We’re above the state and region in all passing levels and then the same for English I and English II.”
In the 2019 TEA AF accountability ratings, GJHS received a 36 out of 100 in the Closing the Gaps domain and was placed into school improvement. Since that time the campus has made strides, but other things have stopped the label from being removed.
“This is three years in a row that the junior high has the assessment data that we clearly get out of school improvement,” Superintendent Sonny Cruse said. “We’ve never had the label removed because of coming out of COVID and now the delay in getting ratings. We would clearly be out of school improvement officially at the state level with the last three years of data that we have on that campus.”
The district’s level of economically disadvantaged students was at 59.4% district wide, which was lower than the state average of 62.1%.
“That data varies from grade level to grade level. Our economically disadvantaged numbers at elementary are higher than that,” Browning said. “When they get to the high school level, those numbers are less than that.”
The district has approximately 335.8 total staff members with the majority of the 158.9 employees teachers having 11-20 years of experience. The average salary of teachers in the district is $55,048, which is under the stage average of $60,717.
Central administration for the district has five employees with an average salary of $123,509, which is over the state average of $112,702.
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