Spring ISD’s Dekaney High School vaulted from an F to a C in the state’s A-F accountability ratings for the 2025-26 school year, sparing the district from a potential state takeover.
The high school had received F-ratings for four consecutive years, putting Spring ISD on the brink of state intervention. A fifth failing grade would have allowed the Texas Education Commissioner to take over the entire district with more than 33,000 students, replace the superintendent and oust the elected school board.
Instead, Dekaney High School improved its state rating by 21 points in one year after Spring ISD adopted a state-approved turnaround plan in 2025 focused on classroom instruction, monitoring student performance, and teacher development. The turnaround offers an example of a school district rapidly improving chronically struggling schools while keeping local control as Texas has accelerated its takeover of school districts.
“The amount of pressure — I think the spotlight was on them last year,” said Superintendent Kregg Cuellar during a visit to Dekaney on Wednesday, the first day of school. “I know that was something that no one wants to be a part of. But the team really rallied around that whole premise around hope and belief, and they worked so very hard for the results that they got.”
The state’s Education Commissioner Mike Morath called Spring’s achievement “great news.”
“This is really the whole point of the accountability system. You don’t want to see the state intervene,” Morath said Friday during a visit to Galena Park ISD. “This is not what we wish to do. And what happens, though, is because we’re public about the performance requirement, local governing teams, local school boards, local superintendents, they shift resources around. They focus managerial attention, and they deliver improvements for kids.”
Even as 20-point jumps may be rare, more schools are expected to make significant gains like Dekaney, according to Mary Lynn Pruneda, who directs education and workforce policy at the think tank Texas 2036.
“We’re at the point in the system where there are going to be districts that are looking at three years of improvement required, or four years of improvement required, and they’re going to have to make these changes,” Pruneda said.
Schools can raise their grades through overall performance or academic growth, said David DeMatthews, who teaches educational leadership and policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Because Dekaney High started with such low scores, even a modest improvement can make a big difference.
“The next year it gets harder and harder to continually score on growth versus scoring on overall achievement,” DeMatthews said.
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Even with those gains, Spring ISD lags behind other Houston-area high schoolers on all high school end-of-course state exams. [Dekaney principal Connie] Smith recognizes the school has more to do and pledged they will continue its turnaround plan and aim for an A rating.
“A ‘C’ is just a testament of the hard work of our teachers, our kids, our staff, the community, the district,” Smith said. “But our ultimate goal is to be of excellence. And according to the state, that’s an A. But according to us, that’s that individual innate ability to want to be better. And so we are aiming at being excellent this year.”
See here and here for the background. Speaking from our experience, whatever Spring ISD had to do to avoid this fate was worth it. Other ISDs are working to avoid that fate as well, while Austin ISD is probably cooked. Someday, maybe, we’ll realize that more investment by the state up front, in prenatal and maternity care, in overall healthcare, in fighting poverty and malnutrition, in childcare and pre-K, as well as in public education, would not only avoid most of these problems but raise overall performance in the schools and future potential for millions of Texas. We’re nowhere near that point, but it’s worth remembering it from time to time.