TAA 2009–10 School Report Cards online

ACTION REQUIRED

December 10, 2010

TO THE SUPERINTENDENT ADDRESSED:

The 2009-10 School Report Cards (SRC) for the campuses in your district are now available from the Texas Education Agency’s website at:

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/src/2010/campus.srch.html

To access and print the reports, go to the address shown above and follow the directions given at this site. The SRC reports are not mailed to districts. Detailed instructions and answers to Frequently Asked Questions about printing reports are available from the link to the “help” page at the website.

• School Report Card — As required by statute, these report cards must be disseminated to the “parent, guardian, conservator, or other person having lawful control of each student at the campus.”  Please note:

Distribution to Campuses. The principals of the campuses in your district will be notified by email that their SRC is available. However, it is the district’s responsibility to provide the SRCs to the campuses for distribution to the parents. On written request, the school district is required to provide a copy of a school report card to any other party.

Distribution to Parents. The SRC must be disseminated to parents within six calendar weeks after notification from TEA that it is available. The winter holiday does not count toward the six weeks. The campus administration may provide the SRC in the same manner it normally transmits official communications to parents and guardians, such as including the SRC in a weekly folder sent home with each student, mailing it to the student’s residence, providing it at a teacher-parent conference, or enclosing it with the student report card. While you are required, at a minimum, to provide SRCs to parents, you are not limited to providing just this information. You may want to supplement the report by including information that highlights other areas of improvement and accomplishments of your schools.

Schools without an SRC. Some schools will not have an SRC. Generally, these are schools that meet two criteria:  they serve special populations of students; and, they do not have TAKS results. Examples are the Juvenile Justice and Disciplinary Alternative Education Program campuses, and schools serving only the early education through kindergarten grades. Schools that are new in 2010-11 also will not have a 2009-10 SRC. Schools without a TEA-generated SRC are not required to distribute a report.

Schools with an SRC. Schools with sufficient TAKS data to receive an accountability rating, charter schools, and schools that have been paired for accountability purposes will have an SRC. Schools paired for accountability rating purposes will have an SRC even though they do not have TAKS results of their own. Paired schools must distribute their SRC.

• Sample Cover Letter — A cover letter for the SRC is not required, but many schools find it useful to provide one. A sample cover letter to parents is available (at the link below) for your use (in English and Spanish) or you may wish to write your own cover letter.
  
  
• Definitions — Brief definitions of the items included in the SRC are also available at the link below. Definitions are not required to be provided to parents, but many schools find it useful to include them with the reports. A Spanish translation of the Definitions is also available.

The text of this email is posted at the Texas Education Agency Correspondence site. Links at the bottom allow for access to the attachments (the sample cover letters and the Definitions) in an electronic format:

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/taa/perfreport121010.html

If parents have follow-up questions about the information provided, the Glossary produced for the 2009-10 Academic Excellence Indicator System (AEIS) reports contains detailed definitions and sources of data for all the information included in the SRC. The data in the SRC is a subset of that published in the AEIS reports. The Glossary can be viewed and/or downloaded from the following website address:

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/aeis/2010/glossary.html

Should you wish to review the Commissioner of Education rules governing the School Report Card, see 19 TAC § 61.1021, located on the agency’s website at:

http://ritter.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter061/ch61bb.html

We hope that you find this material informative and helpful. If, after careful reading of the enclosed materials you have questions regarding the SRC, please contact the Division of Performance Reporting at the email address shown below.

Contact Information
Texas Education Agency
Department of Assessment, Accountability, and Data Quality, Criss Cloudt, Associate Commissioner
Division of Performance Reporting, Shannon Housson, Director
State Accountability Unit—Standard Procedures, Cathy Long, Manager
State Accountability Unit—AEA Procedures, Nancy Rinehart, Manager
(512) 463-9704
performance.reporting@tea.state.tx.us

Attachments:

School Report Card Definitions (English) - a PDF file
Definiciones para la Calificación Escolar (Spanish) - a PDF file
Sample letter for Parents (English) - a Word document
Sample letter for Parents (Spanish) - a Word document