Friday, January 17, 2025
AZLE — Azle ISD is seeing some improvements in accountability scores for certain special student populations. During a Dec. 16 board of trustees meeting, Jordan Thiem, director of secondary curriculum and federal programs for the district, presented the most recent Texas Education Agency Results Driven Accountability scores for Azle students. One change, Thiem noted, is that the scores will be used to judge the district’s compliance with state education standards, as well as federal, for the first time.
The scores, Thiem explained, reflect STAAR test scores for students in three categories: English as a second language, special education and other special populations. From these scores, TEA assigns a determination level to each group in accordance with federal standards. This ensures test scores for these special populations do not lag behind in any particular school and that they’re being graded proportionally to one another.
“The real intent behind this is to drive transparency on numbers for these special groups,” Thiem said. “It's also with the idea of improving results and establishing needs inside of these special populations.”
In its last scores, Azle ISD received the highest distinction possible in all three categories, Determination Level 1. This is an improvement from the 2022-2023 school year’s scores where other special populations, including military families, highly mobile families, homeless students and those in foster care, were at Determination Level 2. Thiem concluded that the district’s recent drive to target support to students in the foster care system and those covered under the McKinney-Vento Homeless Assistance Act have been working. Thiem said there is still work to be done and Azle schools will continue improving in each of these categories. Within other special populations, Thiem said Azle schools will continue to focus on recovering learning loss reflected in mathematics, reading and writing scores across districts. For its special education populations, Thiem said the district will continue to look at writing processes at the secondary level with an emphasis on cross-curricular humanities and evaluate inclusion supports at the high school in all subject matter.
