BEAUMONT, Texas — The Beaumont ISD Board of Trustees on Thursday night unanimously voted to join a lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency (TEA)over transparency in its accountability ratings system.
The suit against the TEA centers around how the state assigns accountability grades to districts and their campuses.
Each year the TEA gives a district a letter grade ranging from an A to an F. Those ratings consider standardized test results, annual academic growth, graduation rates and college, career and military readiness.
Now, though, the TEA is changing some of the methodology of how it grades.
"The A-F accountability system is also being refreshed this year, with some changes to cut points and some changes to indicator methodology," the TEA's website explains.
The districts' lawsuit alleges the changes are unfair because the new methods "were not provided to districts in the beginning of the 2022-2023 school year as required by state statute."
The new method, they argue, "will lower performance ratings for many school districts and campuses even though their performance improved."
Beaumont ISD Superintendent, Dr. Shannon Allen, said that by the board joining this litigation she hopes it sends a message to the community.
"We support our teachers and our students with the work they do," she said.
TEA Commissioner Mike Morath was at a public education event in Dallas on Tuesday, September 19, 2023, after several North Texas school boards voted to join the lawsuit against him and the agency.
As the keynote speaker of the State of Public Education event, Morath told the crowd of educators, "my charge by the State of Texas is to think of how to make it better for five and a half million souls in Texas public schools."
But not all the educators in attendance believe Morath is making things better.
Dallas ISD Superintendent Stephanie Elizalde spoke at the event after Morath, and did not shy away from addressing him.
"I would ask all of us, including the commissioner, do the grades correlate to student improvement, or do the grades contradict student performance?" she asked the crowd.
"Parents look at these letter grades to decide where to live," Elizalde later told WFAA. "So, this could have an impact on property values, it could have an impact on student enrollment...and every time you talk about enrollment, you're talking about dollars."
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This is a developing story. We will update with more if and when we receive more confirmed information.