CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Superintendents from several Texas school districts gathered at the Travis County courthouse Friday morning to express their gratitude to a Travis County judge who granted a temporary injunction of the Texas Education Agency's rating system earlier this week.
Superintendents from across the state said they were more than pleased with the judge's ruling but that there is still more work to be done. One of those superintendents is Dr. Cissy Reynolds-Perez of Kingsville ISD, who spoke on the challenges of leading the lawsuit against the TEA.
"This was a very terrifying step to take. And like I said, not every district can do this. I am thankful to the board for letting me take this step. And it is about the students. Let's not forget that. This is about the students and our teachers."
The TEA is now prohibited from assigning A-F performance ratings to schools for the 2022-2023 school year.
This comes after the agency delayed the release of the accountability ratings just a month ago.
The districts involved in this lawsuit against the TEA argued that it changed the rating system during the school year and then applied it retroactively, which led to some districts receiving lower performance ratings.
The state can take over operations if a school ranks low enough in these ratings for a long period of time.