What A Great Academic Year!

“We value creativity, relevance and rigor in learning.”“We have one purpose: learning.”
Recent events really accentuate these two sentences from our positioning statement.

· Our high schools hold senior walks annually. These are events where the senior classes learn about college scholarships and other awards. These scholarships may be from such local organizations such the C-FB ISD Educational Foundation, Civic League, local Rotary Clubs or area businesses. Students also receive scholarships from colleges, universities, the military and other non-community sources. This year, our 2009 graduating class accepted $23,100,166 in scholarships. Nine C-FB ISD graduates received appointments to military academies, and 36 are joining the armed forces.

· For fourth time, C-FB ISD has been listed as a “Best Community for Music Education in America.” This national recognition comes from the N-A-M-M Foundation. This year’s the 124 Best Communities represent 21 states with a record amount of communities from New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Texas.Ten Texas school districts made the list – C-FB ISD, Arlington, Denton, Hurst-Euless-Bedford (HEB), Katy, Klein, Midway, Northwest, Pasadena, and Plano.

· Preliminary TAKS scores are in, and the news is phenomenal. We believe all C-FB ISD elementary schools will be either recognized or exemplary under the Texas Education Agency (TEA) accountability rating system. That’s a first for us.

· When we look at our 2009 Projected TEA campus ratings, we are seeing a dramatic increase in the number of exemplary schools and notable decline in academically acceptable ratings. Take a look:

Rating	2009	2008	Change from 2009
Exemplary	19	8	+136%
Recognized	16	14	+14%
Academically Acceptable	3	14	-79%
% Exemplary or Recognized	92%	61%	+31%

· Even better is news – we have more students who have made commended performance scores on their TAKS. What this means is that they scored considerably above the state passing standard and showed thorough understanding of the knowledge and skills at the grade level they were tested.

All in all, C-FB ISD has had an excellent year for learning. The support our community and others have given not only the Class of 2009 but to all our students is incredible. The $23 million-plus in scholarships is just an example of the financial support that our students have received thanks to their academic success.The achievement of our students on the Texas Academic Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) is something to celebrate.

It is an indication that all of us value creativity, relevance and rigor in learning.C-FB ISD: We innovate, lead and learn because we are innovative leaders in learning.