From left are Spring Hill ISD Superintendent Wayne Guidry, Pine Tree ISD Superintendent Steve Clugston and White Oak ISD Superintendent Brian Gray.

Educators and local leaders asked the state to pause its accountability rating system for the school year, and the Texas Education Agency listened.

Public schools will not be given an A-F rating for the 2020-21 school year because of disruptions to learning caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Texas Education Agency announced Thursday. However, students still will be given the STAAR test.

The state in the past has used the STAAR test and other measures to assign a letter grade to schools.

According to TEA, the STAAR test will be given “in order to provide critically important information about individual student learning that teachers and parents can use to help students grow. For those schools that incorporate STAAR results into teacher evaluations, TEA is providing flexibility to allow them to remove that component this school year.”

Longview-area superintendents said Thursday that they support the pause on ratings while still administering the test.

“I think it’s what most superintendents have been asking for,” Spring Hill ISD Superintendent Wayne Guidry said. “We want to assess our kids to find out where they’re at and what we need to do to catch students up. The problem we have is having a punitive accountability system that punishes you in the midst of a pandemic.”

State Rep. Jay Dean, R-Longview, is one of the legislators who pushed for the STAAR test to be canceled and the ratings to be paused. He said he is glad TEA made its decision.

“With everything that’s going on as a direct correlation with the COVID pandemic, a lot of schools have had their hands full,” he said. “They don’t need that extra pressure. We all believe in accountability, but we have to get back to something as close to normal as we possibly can.

“In the upcoming (legislative) session, we’ll be limited in what we can do, but I hope we’ll take a long term look at the STAAR test and the A-F accountability ratings and come up with something that better represents our rural school districts,” he said.

Pine Tree ISD Superintendent Steve Clugston said no one knows yet how much the shutdowns from COVID-19 will impact learning. Some teachers are missing more days than usual because of having to quarantine, some students are back and forth from online to in-person instruction and some schools have had to shut down for some time.

“By taking the STAAR test, I think it matters,” he said. “I think it gives us a good look at where we are, and we can compare that to other schools. I think providing grace on the accountability probably takes a little pressure and a lot of stress off teachers and schools.”

White Oak ISD Superintendent Brian Gray said the decision is a result of a lot of factors, including educators and legislators making their voices heard.

“I think our local representation in the Longview area in the legislative branch have done good work in supporting what (Education) Commissioner (Mike) Morath has decided,” he said. “But at the end of the day, it’s just the right thing to do. You’ve got kids in quarantine, and online, and kids back in class, and to hold kids accountable through all that with a standard of A-F is hard to justify.”

Gray said taking the test will give the district data it needs to evaluate where students need to improve.

Guidry said since this is a new system, it is hard to tell whether the test will be taken as seriously without the ratings.

“It does make you kind of skeptical on the results you receive,” he said. “You have to wonder, was there 100% effort given in this assessment.”

But there still will be a push for that effort, Clugston said.

“There’s no sense in taking it if we’re not going to treat it like it matters, otherwise we’re not going to get our best effort,” he said. “Whether it’s used for accountability or not, it matters because we need to get a true look at what our kids can do. If we’re not going to do that, then why are we taking it?”