The Nursery school district has a few things to brag about this upcoming school year.
Nursery school district surpassed the state standards in their Texas Education Agency accountability report for this year in all three areas - student achievement, student progress, closing the performance gaps - by at least 17 points.
Campuses are rated on their weighted performance rate on their state assessment exams in comparison to other campuses with similar demographics and size.
Guadalupe Elementary, Westhoff Elementary and Moulton Elementary were placed in the same comparison group as Nursery.
Nursery superintendent and principal Suzanne Bell credits her one-campus, kindergarten-fifth district's success to minimizing the number of state benchmark exams students take throughout the year.
In third, fourth and fifth grades, students take one to two benchmark tests a year, which is less than what other districts normally do, Bell said.
The change in philosophy from previous years has helped reduce the amount of stress students and teachers have when approaching the State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness exam.
"If you stress success daily, then students will see testing days as just another day, " Bell said.
