For the first since 2019, the Texas Education Agency released official accountability ratings for school districts and campuses statewide on Aug. 14.

The TEA ratings showed that the Fort Stockton Independent School District is rebounding from the pandemic in a rapid manner and are nearing pre-pandemic academic performance.

Fort Stockton ISD received an overall rating of a B (81) and were led by the Intermediate Campus, which received a B rating of an 82.

“To me, it’s a monumental achievement to have passed every campus in year one coming off of COVID. It’s a testament to how hard our people worked and to the early results of the systems/ changes that we put in place,” Fort Stockton ISD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Zamora said.

Apache Elementary received the second-highest score with an 81 and the middle school campus was third with a 78.

The high school campus maintained their C status with an overall score of 76 while Alamo received a 73.

Ratings were not given out by TEA in 2020 and were not officially recorded in 2021.

Zamora explained that STAAR testing scores is a primary factor for rating individual campuses.

“STAAR testing is the bulk,” Zamora said of campus ratings. “It’s just that there are a few different pathways and the state looks at which pathway the campus did best on and gives you that.”

As for the district rating, TEA states that the score measures how much students are learning in each grade and whether or not they are ready for the next grade. It also shows how well a school or district prepares their students for success after high school in college, the workforce, or the military.

According to Zamora, all campuses except the high school would have failed if a rating was given out last year. The lone exception was the high school, which would have received a C.

“High school was a C last year. None of them were rated officially. They were rated using the state’s calculator system. The campuses would have failed except high school. I provided that to the board,” Zamora said.

Compared to the 2019 accountability ratings, Fort Stockton ISD scored two points higher in STAAR performance (67-65) according to the scaled score and improved from an F in academic growth to a B grade this past year.

The district was only three points behind the school progress score from the last official rating in 2019.

Zamora believes that academic improvement will continue to improve with the new systems and administrative structure in place.

“The teachers and kids deserve a ton of credit because they performed. Of course, the hard work that our administrators put in with the HB-4545 regarding additional tutoring requirements. All of that together is what led us to this point,” he said. “It’s a very solid foundation that has been laid for us to build on. Just like I told them, you know we can do it under the worst of circumstances. Now let’s go through and implement what we started in an entire year and show what we can do.”