The Texas Education Agency (TEA) has chosen Brownwood High School as a “Best Practices” model for Whole-School Strategies for Improvement. BHS was one of only nine high schools selected in the State as a Best Practices school.
“It’s really quite an honor,” said High School Principal, Bill Faircloth.
The Best Practices Clearinghouse identifies schools that are excelling in a particular area and investigates what makes them successful. An in-depth report is generated on each Best Practices school, so that others can learn from their methods of achievement.
According to Mr. Faircloth, the strategies for improvement at Brownwood High School began about four years ago. Prior to 2008, BHS had been an “Acceptable” rated high school for many years. School administrators noticed that students were not performing to the best of their abilities, and they began to put into place programs that would challenge students to achieve more.
Some of those programs were the “Zeros Aren’t Permitted” policy and madatory tutoring for low performing students.
Almost immediately, student performance began to improve, and testing scores began to increase. In 2008, BHS was named a “Recognized” school, and has been ever since. In fact, BHS missed being named “Exemplary” this year by only a few percentage points.
The Key Strategies that TEA recognized as BHS’s Best Practices are:
- Vertical alignment of curriculum (elementary through high school) in all core subject areas
- “Zeros Aren’t Permitted” (ZAP) policy and mandatory afterschool ZAP session to complete assignments
- Student data review and assignment of struggling students to mandatory tutoring
- Advanced Placement (AP) training for all core-area teachers and joint training for middle/high school teacher teams
- Focus on a caring culture, communication, and orderly environment for learning
The entire report may be viewed at www.teabpc.org or on the BISD website at www.brownwoodisd.org.
BHS was one of only nine high schools selected in the state as a Best Practices school.