Current through Reg. 50, No. 13; March 28, 2025
(a) The
local accountability system standards established by the commissioner of
education under Texas Education Code (TEC), §39.0544, shall be used by
school districts to develop a plan to locally evaluate the performance of their
campuses. For the purpose of this section, the term school district includes
open-enrollment charter schools.
(b) A local accountability plan created by a
school district must include domain performance ratings assigned by the
commissioner under TEC, §39.054,
and performance ratings based on locally developed domains or sets of
accountability measures.
(1) A locally
developed domain or set of accountability measures is referred to as a plan
component. Plan components must describe each item and the reason for its
inclusion in the plan. A school district must assign each component to one of
the following five domains: academics, culture and climate, extra- and
co-curricular, future-ready learning, and locally determined. The weight of all
plan components must equal 100%.
(2) Each campus with an approved school
district plan is eligible to receive local accountability rating. A campus with
an overall state accountability rating of C or higher based on ratings derived
from student performance at the campus is eligible to combine an overall local
accountability rating with the overall state accountability rating to determine
the combined rating.
(3) For the
purposes of assigning state accountability ratings, a campus that does not
serve any grade level for which a State of Texas Assessments of Academic
Readiness (STAAR®) examination is administered is paired with a campus in
its school district that serves grade levels for which STAAR® examinations
are administered. A campus not rated under the state accountability system is
not eligible to combine state and local ratings. Local accountability data for
a campus without state ratings may be displayed on Texas Education Agency
(TEA), school district, and campus websites but will not be combined with state
accountability data. The state accountability manual adopted under
§97.1001 of this title (relating to
Accountability Rating System) provides information about campus ratings and
eligibility for applicable years.
(4) A school district must create its local
accountability plan based on school type. The four school types are elementary
school, middle school, high school, and Kindergarten-Grade 12. The plan must
include all campuses within a school type. The school district may also request
to identify an additional school group within a school type for which to
customize its local accountability plan. Otherwise, all campuses within a
school type must be evaluated on a common set of components determined by the
school district. A school district may also request to identify a campus rated
under alternative education accountability provisions as a unique school
type.
(c) A school
district may assign weights to each plan component described in subsection
(b)(1) of this section, as determined by the district, provided that the plan
components must in the aggregate account for no more than 50% of the combined
overall performance rating. A local accountability plan may include no fewer
than two and no more than ten components weighted between 5% and 60%.
(d) Each plan component must contain levels
of performance that allow for differentiation, with assigned standards for
achieving the differentiated levels that are aligned to a letter grade of A, B,
C, D, or F.
(1) In order to provide for the
assignment of a letter grade of A, B, C, D, or F, a school district must use
data collected by the district to calculate the current baseline average. The
baseline data calculated by the school district is used to set standards for
each level by setting the average at a C, or mid-level, with the higher A and B
grades designating levels considered to be exceptional and good, respectively,
and the lower D and F grades designating levels considered to need improvement
and be unacceptable, respectively.
(2) A school district may choose to include a
single component with a weight not exceeding 10% with the levels of
differentiation based on the face value of the average performance level rather
than the average performance level, or baseline, being set at the C or
mid-level value.
(3) In the case of
components where current baseline levels are not used to set the campus rating
scale to a C or mid-level value, TEA may require the school district to
re-evaluate the inclusion of the component on an annual
basis.
(e) Each plan
component measure must meet standards for reliability and validity.
(1) In terms of specific measures, tests, or
ratings, a measure is considered reliable if it delivers consistent results
across administrations.
(2) In
terms of specific measures, tests, or ratings, a measure is considered valid if
the resulting outcome represents what the test is designed to
measure.
(3) Reliability and
validity are closely related, and both must be evident for a measure, test, or
rating to be included as component outcomes in a local accountability system
plan.
(f) Calculations
for each plan component and overall performance ratings must be capable of
being audited by a third party.
(1) A school
district must use a one-to-one correspondence when converting campus grades
based on plan component measures to a standard scale of 30-100 where A=90-100,
B=80-89, C=70-79, D=60-69, and F=30-59.
(2) Categorical data, or data not on a
continuous scale, must be converted to the standard scale of A=90-100, B=80-89,
C=70-79, D=60-69, and F=30-59 by assigning the maximum value for each scaled
score interval with the corresponding category used in the campus rating
scale.
(3) A school district is
required to submit a local accountability plan that includes components,
domains, and overall scaled scores and ratings to TEA on a timeline determined
by the commissioner. The timeline will be published on the TEA
website.
(4) All scaled scores and
letter grades submitted by a school district are subject to audit. Any data
discrepancies or any indication that data have been compromised may result in
verification and audit of school district and campus data used to assign local
accountability ratings. The audit process may include requests for data used
for campus-level calculation of component and domain scaled scores.
(5) On an annual basis, TEA will randomly
select school districts for local accountability audits, and, for each such
audit, TEA will randomly select components for review. Selected school
districts must submit the requested data for review within the timeframe
specified. A school district must maintain documentation of its local
accountability plan, along with all associated data used to assign campus
ratings, for two years after the end of the plan implementation
period.
(6) Responsibility for the
accuracy and quality of data used to determine local accountability ratings
rests with each school district. Superintendent certification of data accuracy
during the ratings submission process shall include an assurance that
calculations have been verified to ensure that all data were included as
appropriate for all components.
(7)
An appeal of a local accountability rating may be submitted by the
superintendent or chief operating officer once ratings are released. The local
accountability appeals timeline follows the appeal deadline dates and processes
as described in the state accountability manual adopted under
§97.1001 of this title for the
applicable year.
(g) A
school district must produce a campus score card and make available on the
district website an explanation of the methodology used to assign local
accountability performance ratings. The campus score card shall include, at a
minimum, the scaled score and rating for each component and domain along with
the overall rating. A link to the local accountability ratings posted by the
school district must be provided to TEA and may be included on the
agency-developed school report card.
(h) Ratings may be revised as a result of
investigative activities by the commissioner as authorized under TEC,
§39.057(d) and
(e).
