ACTION REQUIRED November 22 2002 TO THE SUPERINTENDENT ADDRESSED

action required november 22, 2002 to the superintendent addressed: the 2001-02 school report cards (src) for the campuses in your

ACTION REQUIRED
November 22, 2002
TO THE SUPERINTENDENT ADDRESSED:
The 2001-02 School Report Cards (SRC) for the campuses in your
district will be available from the Texas Education Agency’s website
by 10 a.m. on November 26, 2002. For the first time, these reports are
not being mailed to districts. To access and print the reports, type
the following address on your web browser:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/src/2002/campus.srch.html
and follow the directions given at that site. 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 not get a separate notification by mail that their SRC
is available. However, they will be notified by email. This is a
change from prior years. It is the districts’ 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 weeks after notification from TEA that it is available. The
mid-year semester break does not have to be counted as part of the six
weeks. The campus administration may provide the SRC in the same
manner it would normally transmit 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 a SRC. Some schools will not have a SRC. Any school
that does not have TAAS results, or has such small enrollment that its
results are masked, will not have a SRC. These schools are not
required to distribute a report. Note that schools paired for
accountability ratings purposes will have a SRC even though they do
not have TAAS 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, and a Spanish translation of the sample cover
letter is provided for your use, or you may wish to write your own
cover letter. For your convenience, the sample cover letters can
be downloaded from the agency website. This entire letter of
notification will be available at the following address; links at
the bottom of the notification letter will allow access to the
sample cover letters:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/taa/perf021126.html
*
Definitions — Brief definitions of the items included in the SRC,
and a Spanish translation of the definitions, are provided.
Definitions are not required to be provided to parents, but you
may find it useful to do so.
If parents have follow-up questions about the information provided,
the Glossary produced for the 2001-02 Academic Excellence Indicator
System (AEIS) reports in late October contains all the definitions and
sources of data for the SRC. The information contained in the SRC is a
subset of that published in the AEIS reports. Both Spanish and English
versions of the Glossary are available as files that can be downloaded
from the following website address:
http://www.tea.state.tx.us/perfreport/aeis/2002/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://www.tea.state.tx.us/rules/tac/chapter061/ch61bb.html
I hope that you find this material informative and helpful. If, after
careful reading of the enclosed materials you have questions about the
SRC, please contact the Division of Performance Reporting at (512)
463-9704.
Sincerely,
Criss Cloudt, Associate Commissioner
for Accountability Reporting and Research
Enclosures:
School Report Card Definitions (English) – a PDF file
School Report Card Definitions (Spanish) – a PDF file
Sample letter for Parents (English) – a Word document
Sample letter for Parents (Spanish) – a Word document