Report cards are headed home, but this time they’re for the school districts instead of the students, and Tyler ISD is getting a C letter grade from the state.

The Texas Education Agency has changed the way it measures school accountability in an attempt to make it easier for parents to understand, by assigning districts a letter grade ranging from A through F.

Lindale fared best among Smith County school districts, receiving the only A rating. Lindale is one of only 153 of the 1,247 public and charter school districts in the state that earned an A rating, according to the Texas Education Agency. Some districts were not rated due to Hurricane Harvey recovery.

Lindale ISD presented preliminary results to their board of trustees on Monday. Superintendent Stan Surratt said the district was very happy with its results. Surratt did note that the new accountability system was no easier to understand than in previous years, saying it is unfair to districts to simplify their achievements to just a letter grade.

Those receiving a B letter grade included Bullard, Chapel Hill and Whitehouse ISDs, and the UT Tyler Innovation Academy. Those getting a C grade were Arp, Troup, Tyler and Winona ISDs, and Cumberland Academy.

This also will be the last year campuses will be categorized under “Improvement Required” or “Met Standard” labels because those will be replaced with a letter grade next year.

The overall grade in the A-F system is based on four indexes — student achievement, student growth, performance compared to other districts with similar rates of economically disadvantaged students and how well districts closed performance gaps. The overall score and letter grade is an average of the highest of the first three categories and the fourth.

Five years ago Tyler ISD had 11 schools on the state’s “Improvement Required” list. With Wednesday’s report cards, the district can now say that every school except for its credit recovery school has met standards.

Tyler ISD Assistant Superintendent for Curriculum and Instruction Christy Hanson said the district feels like they have a good starting point for continued growth.

“A ‘C’ is average. An ‘A’ is considered exemplary. A 78 is not where we want to stay, but certainly it’s a good starting point, so that we know where we’re headed,” Hanson said. “We don’t want to stay there, but now that we have all the rules of the game, we feel like we really are going to focus on

growing kids. We know if we do that, the district is going to be successful.”

Hanson said individual campuses are still using the “Met Standards” or “Improvement Required” designations, but the TEA did opt to also release numerical values in late July.

Last year the district was down to just two campuses on the “Improvement Required” list. Dogan Middle School was closed at the end of the year, while T.J. Austin Elementary School was back on the list last year after making it off the year before and it came off the list again this year.

“We’re very proud of the campus staff and the students, teachers, principals and district staff who have worked so hard to ensure we understood the system we were working under,” Hanson said. “What we’ve always known is that all students are capable of achieving, what we needed to be able to figure out is how to be able to close those skill gaps early on.”

RISE Academy, the district’s credit recovery school, was issued an “Improvement Required” label, which Superintendent Marty Crawford said they are appealing. RISE is not a traditional, comprehensive school. Struggling students attend RISE to get back on track and graduate.

Hanson said RISE was not rated alongside other Tyler ISD campuses in the previous accountability system. This is its first year designated as a campus, along with the Early College High School.

Tyler ISD’s Director of Assessments and Accountability James Cureton said the rating for RISE was handed down without all of the data being accounted for. The TEA was still adjusting formulas and criteria as recently as late July, he said.

Hanson said the district will appeal the rating because it did not include college and career readiness metrics and because the campus is new, it has no seniors accounted for in the formula used.

“I think we’re moving in the right direction. I feel confident in knowing that as a district we have systems in place for every teacher, every grade level. It seems to be permeating throughout the entire district,” Hanson said. “We want to be able to (ensure) every student grows, leaps up to the next category. If they’re approaching grade level, we set the goal to have them meet. If they’re meets grade level, they need to get to masters grade level.”

Take a look at how each district and campus performed, along with distinctions given to each campus here.