The Texas Education Agency (TEA) denied McKinney ISD's appeal of an Unacceptable Rating at McKinney High School due to coding errors. The campus was penalized on its student completion rate for not accurately coding students who withdrew during the school year. The campus identified the eight students needed to move them to an acceptable rating, however, TEA denied the appeal on the grounds of missing the deadline for submission of student data.
"As a district and campus we bear the responsibility for the process of coding students properly when they transfer out of the district, move out of state, pursue a GED or begin home-schooling," stated Mr. Crowe, Superintendent of Schools. "That said, the rating is not indicative of the overall academic performance and accomplishments of the school. The district and campus have redesigned processes to ensure that this does not happen in the future. It's a shame that a campus on the brink of being Recognized will be labeled Unacceptable for a year due to coding errors for one indicator. All we can do at this point is move forward and continue to support the hard work of the teachers and students at McKinney High School."
A recent analysis of the McKinney High School completion rate projects the school to be at a Recognized level on the indicator. High school campuses are rated on 25 different indicators. McKinney High School improved their performance on 15 out of 20 academic indicators. The improvement in academic performance left them 30 students away from being a Recognized campus. However, due to the coding errors, the campus received an Unacceptable rating.
"This is extremely disappointing given the academic performance of our students on both state (TAKS) and national assessments (Advanced Placement, SAT, ACT, PSAT)," said Stewart Herrington, McKinney High School Principal. "What this ruling means is that our current rating will remain in place until new data (spring 2010 TAKS performance and completion data for the Class of 2009 cohort) is evaluated. We are confident that performance on TAKS this spring will again demonstrate successful academic achievement of MHS students and that our current rating will be raised next summer."
Overall student performance continued to improve across the district. 16 of 19 McKinney ISD elementary schools were rated either Recognized or Exemplary, four out of five of the middle schools were rated Recognized, and McKinney Boyd High School received a Recognized rating. McKinney North High School missed the Recognized rating by less than five students.