True Accountability

• To whom are we accountable and for what?

At Throckmorton Collegiate ISD we are committed to being home of the most inspired students served by the most empowered leaders. We will fulfill this vision through our mission of inspiring and empowering every learner to be lifelong learners, responsible citizens, effective communicators, college and career ready, and have strong character. These are all traits that you, as a community, stated were the hopes and dreams you wanted our graduates to have. Finally, we know that our vision is realized and our mission accomplished when every learner in TCISD is experiencing profound learning and is growing in the attributes of the TCISD Learner Profile. We take this responsibility as the utmost honor and are committed to being the school district our community deserves. In order to accomplish the goals and strategies of our strategic plan and secure the hopes and dreams of our community, we must work together to build a system that is capable of capturing our strengths and weaknesses and can shine a light on future opportunities. In Throckmorton, we believe that community engagement enhances the learning experience; with this belief, we know that we can best serve our community when your voice, input and feedback is captured to influence our work. For these reasons TCISD is excited to continue our work with over 50 school districts across Texas in the Texas Public Accountability Consortium (TPAC) as we partner with you to develop our own community-based True Accountability System.

What does this mean for you?

As we continue this work, we heard from you. We met in 2017 to gather up your hopes and dreams for your children, your school and your community to drive the work of True Accountability. This information was used to form the TCISD Vision and Mission and Learner Profile. It will be used to inform the development of TCISD’s True Accountability System.

What do we know about accountability?

• In Throckmorton, our District acknowledges our State Accountability System and will continue to pursue improvement in that system. We also strongly believe that the District is most accountable to the community for fulfilling the hopes and dreams they have for their children and their futures.
  We know that effective organizations, be it banks, hospitals, or businesses rely on accountings of the past as well as predictions and preparations for the future based on goals and missions for the organization. However, our current A-F accountability system, which is driven by a singular accountability measure drawn from a child’s performance on state standardized assessments, is only a partial accounting of the child’s learning and does not adequately represent the comprehensive work of the district regarding the development of the whole child.
  We are proud to join over 50 school districts across Texas to build a true accountability system that is capable of showing a more full picture of student learning, readiness, and wellness as well as organizational health in regards to teaching and learning and fiscal and operational accounting.
  

Framework for Community Based Accountability

• Components of the community based accountability system include seven pillars of school accountability, compared to the state’s accountability system, which is based on a single STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) assessment. These pillars were developed by TPAC, in partnership with school leaders throughout the state and country, and represent the domains of accountability for effective schools.

Pillars of Accountability

• 1. Student Learning and Progress: Ensure academic success for all students, including but not limited to English language learners, special education students, recent immigrants, students with emotional and behavioral issues.
  2. Student Readiness: Ensure students are well prepared for their next level of education and most notably for postsecondary success, including career readiness, college readiness, and Military Readiness.
  3. Engaged, Well-Rounded Students: Engage students in a way that contributes to their overall development and future well-being.
  4. Community Engagement and Partnerships: Ensure that local citizens are a meaningful, integral part of a school community and can and will support their local public schools.
  5. Professional Learning/Quality Staff: Ensure that every student has quality teachers and adults in the schools that care about students, their learning, and their well-being.
  6. Fiscal and Operational Systems: Ensure the district is using its resources to further its mission to educate the students it serves.
  7. Safety and Well-Being: Ensure students are educated in an optimal environment that is safe, secure, and conducive to learning. This includes both physical safety as well as the social-emotional needs of each student.
  

Accountability Engine

• The accountability engine demonstrates a series of processes used to driving meaningful change in the district and bring the district from where it is to where it wants to be with respect to the many functions and missions of the district. The accountability engine clearly articulates what we hope to accomplish, the system capacity we desire to have and evidence we will accept to show progress in that endeavor.

Signaling

• We are developing a set of 7 signaling charts to send to our community as a way of showing accountability in each of the 7 pillars and our Throckmorton Learner Profile. Our site based decision making team has worked monthly during the 20-21 school year developing the first signaling chart to go out for pillar 7-safety and well being of students. The committee went through the accountability engine process to develop key questions, system responses, evidence, and needed changes. Throughout this 5 month process, the committee is finalizing its chart to mail out to the community as a way to report out our progress in this area, as it is the backbone to make all the dimensions of our Learner Profile happen.

• Current signaling chart: https://docs.google.com/document/d/14Srk_BnS3JIfXqrob37Pmtm-_qympwI_K3P3ETzydwU/edit?usp=sharing