Beleaguered Lancaster School District takes Another Blow

Wednesday afternoon, the Texas Education Agency (TEA) released campus ratings, based on TAKS test data, for the entire state. The reports for Lancaster show the district remains, as in 2006, “Academically Acceptable”.

However, the district is only barely holding steady with that rating. For 2006, the nine traditional* schools of LISD had zero “Exemplary” campuses, two “Recognized”, five “Acceptable” and two “Unacceptable”. For 2007 the rankings are zero “Exemplary”, zero “Recognized”, seven “Acceptable” and two “Unacceptable”.

The two campus that dropped in the ratings from “Recognized” in 2006 to the lower “Acceptable” standard are elementary schools. Pleasant Run Elementary and the newly-constructed Houston Elementary are the schools that slipped to the lower “Recognized” status. Among other elementary schools, Rolling Hills ES remained “Unacceptable”, unchanged in 2007 from its 2006 rating.

In good news, the Lancaster Middle School has gained ground. The Middle School configuration reached an “Acceptable” rating in 2007, up from the older Lancaster Junior High’s scores of “Unacceptable” in 2006.

The High School has progressed in the wrong direction, slipping from “Acceptable” to “Academically Unacceptable” for 2007. The High School is the largest campus in the district. Over 2000 students are enrolled in the HS from the district’s total enrollment of some 6000. The district administration had hoped and planned that the new $73 million HS facility, and its luxurious athletic arenas, would boost both morale and test scores among the students. The current rating comes as a disappointment. This one rating leaves a third of the community’s students attending an “Unacceptable” facility.

The ratings are not expected to be addressed at the Thursday, 2 August, LISD budget workshop. However, the following Monday 6 August, the regularly scheduled meeting of the Lancaster Board of Trustees is sure to include some comment on the results.

This will be particularly apt in light of recent reports by the superintendent regarding his progress within the district since his arrival in 2003-04. For the rating year 2004, TEA awarded Lancaster High School, Junior High, and “Intermediate” schools an “Acceptable” ranking, and two Elementary Schools, the “Recognized” status. As rated by the TEA, five of the nine LISD campuses have lost ground under Dr Larry Lewis’s leadership.






* The district runs a tenth school, the JD HALL learning center, as an alternative program for students with disciplinary and/or other challenges. The TEA rating for this alternative education program is “Other”.

The J.D. HALL of the name is actually a proper name of a former district leader. The facility was re-christened in 2004. ** The Hall family recently donated memorabilia to establish a small museum or shrine to their patriarch, “ J.D. “ Lancaster residents are encouraged to visit and pay their respects.

Contrary to inference the facility name and function does NOT indicate the facility or “hall” in which the district warehouses it’s “Juvenile Delinquents”.

** Prior to January 2004 the alternate education center was known as “Rocky Crest”. Just who Rocky Crest was and what role he (or she) had in the district’s history is unclear to this author.