‘This is where we start’: Superintendent responds as Abilene ISD anticipates ‘C’ rating

ABILENE, Texas (KTAB/KRBC) – On Tuesday, families of students in the Abilene Independent School District received a letter from the Texas Education Agency, announcing the district’s accountability rating for the 2023-24 school year.

The letter confirms that Abilene ISD will receive a rating of ’72’ for the 2023 school year and is likely to receive a rating of ‘70’ for the 2024 school year. Their rating for 2022 is also expected to be downgraded from 75 to 69 due to new grading criteria. District officials sent a letter to parents on Tuesday morning, ahead of the TEA ratings, which will be released on Thursday.

Abilene ISD Superintendent Dr. John Kuhn said this ‘C’ rating is the district’s baseline under the new state grading criteria.

“This is the new grading system. I’m a new superintendent, so this is where we start from,” Kuhn said.

The grade is an accumulation of different areas of learning, including STAAR test scores, which Kuhn said the district looks at differently.

“Student testing data should be used by educators to analyze what we’re doing well and what we need to improve on. It should be used like that, not to rank and rate schools,” Kuhn said. “Now, when the state comes out and says, ‘Oh, everybody, here’s their grade,’ that’s fine. We want better grades, but our goal is to provide our kids with an excellent education. Then that’s going to translate into an A or B rating. But our goal is not to play a game. Our goal is to educate kids well.”

The district’s main goal moving forward is to have 75% of its students attending an ‘A’ or ‘B’ ranked school within the next five years.

“What we’re doing is reimagining how we do things to get different results. We’ve already done a lot of that at the elementary level with the building broader futures model, with the circle’s model, with the change in how we field our instructional coordinators,” Kuhn shared.

Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum and Learning Patti Blue said reaching their goal is a multi-step process, including converting some campuses to specialized ones.

“We’re looking more and more at specializations for our elementary campuses. A lot of this has not been decided about what the specializations are going to be. That will be some discussions we have as a community going forward,” Blue said.

The district aims to continue the dialogue with the community, as Kuhn states, they plan to measure success beyond just test scores.

As they undergo various changes, the district said it wants to continue having these conversations with the community about what they would like to see implemented in their students’ education.