| (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 local accountability
plan component, domain, and overall scaled scores and ratings to TEA
by the first week of July of the applicable accountability year.
(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).
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