The Texas Education Agency released academic performance data over a week ago and the information revealed showed positive growth at the Fort Stockton ISD.

Adrienne Horton, FSISD Assistant Superintendent of Curriculum & Dyslexia, presented the recently released data on Jan. 30 at the district’s regular school board meeting.

“Compared to our previous scores there has been significant growth in the district, about 20-30% achievement (increase) passing STAAR from the previous year,” she said.

STAAR testing data provided on TEA website showed that Fort Stockton ISD improved at each testing grade level (approaches, meets, masters).

The district showed the greatest improvement in the percent of students who scored in the approaches grade level or above in math and social studies on STAAR tests.

A total of 65% of testing students reached or surpassed the math approaches grade level in district in 2022 compared to 52% in 2021 – a 13% increase.

The same increase occurred in social studies for the district, rising from 55% in 2021 to 68% in 2022.

Overall, the number of testing students who reached or surpassed the approaches grade level in all subjects from 53% to 66% district wide.

STAAR test data showed less significant improvements for students reaching meets or maters grade levels.

The number of testing students at Fort Stockton ISD reaching the meets grade level in all subjects increased from 26% in 2021 to 35% in 2022.

For the masters grade level at FSISD, there was a 4% increase from the previous year (9% to 13%) in all subjects.

Academic growth data was compared by TEA to the 2019 results. The Fort Stockton ISD improved from 60% in 2019 to 62% in 2022 for both the ELA/ reading and mathematic subject areas combined.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, TEA did not give out test scores to individual campuses across the state the previous two years.

This year the agency scored individual campuses for the first time since the 2018-2019 school year.

The data showed that Fort Stockton Intermediate scored the highest within the FSISD with an overall rating of 82 out of 100 (B).

Apache Elementary was a close second at 81.

Fort Stockton Middle School (78), Fort Stockton High School (76), and Alamo Elementary (73) each were given C overall rating grades.

FSISD Superintendent Dr. Gabriel Zamora noted the improvements of each campus compared to last year’s data and the systems currently in place to improve scores in the future.

“The lowest scoring campus, which was Alamo at a 73 this last year and the first year I arrived at the district, would have been at a 58 the previous year (if scores were officially given). Intermediate would have been at a 58, middle school would have been at a 51 and high school would have been at a 64 when it comes to student achievement,” he said. “We implemented ability grouping and extended the day at all of our campuses in order to address what we’re trying to do to set our kids up for success. On top of that, we blocked English and math all the way through at each campus since I’ve been here.”

Compared to state data, Fort Stockton ISD testing students closed the gap in the meets and approaches grade levels while falling behind by 1% in all subject areas in the master’s category.

In the approaches grade level, the percentage of testing students at Fort Stockton ISD in all subjects (53%) was 14% lower compared to the state in 2021. That number decreased to 8% in 2022 (74-66%).

In the meets grade level, the percentage of students reaching or surpassing the mark improved from a 15% deficit 2021 to a 13% deficit in 2022 compared to the state.

The masters grade level gap compared to the state increased from 9% in all subjects in 2021 (18-9%) to 10% in 2022 (23-13%).