Grand Prairie Independent School District (GPISD) has become a leader among Dallas County’s 14 traditional school districts in overall student enrollment growth while closing achievement gaps with the state. And GPISD has done so with one of the region’s higher economically disadvantaged student populations (72% vs. 59% for the state) and one of its lower operating revenues (~$5,600 per student).
In March, GPISD was awarded the first annual Commit! Bright Spot Award: Year Over Year Growth at the Commit! Partnership Annual Dallas County Scorecard Achievement event. Recognized for the best performance over the prior year, Grand Prairie ISD has seen a 7 percent gain across Commit!’s ‘Cradle-to-Career indicators’ of academic proficiency, and a 2 percent decline in income-based achievement gaps. In total, 1,800 more students are meeting key benchmarks from kindergarten readiness through high school graduation rate in Grand Prairie ISD.
Grand Prairie ISD Superintendent Susan Hull attributes the district’s success to a relentless focus on student achievement, an innovative and substantial expansion of school choice, growing relational capacity throughout by including parents, and data-driven decision making.
“Grand Prairie ISD had the highest growth rate of student achievement across our indicators ranging from Kindergarten Readiness to High School Graduation in the last year,” explained Sagar Desai, Chief Operating Officer at Commit!. “The other key factor was Grand Prairie’s success in helping low-income students achieve at levels commensurate with their peers.”
The cradle-to-career indicators included in this measurement are: kindergarten readiness, 3rd grade reading, 4th grade math, 8th grade science, algebra 1, college readiness, and high school graduation. These indicators were determined based on best practices and input from community leaders across the country as the key measures for student success across their K-12 academic career.
A key goal of The Commit! Partnership is to use data to help identify outlier success in Dallas County schools. To learn more about best practices across Dallas County as they are published, follow The Commit Partnership on both Twitterand on Facebook.
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