Mendez Middle School's midyear scores have officials hopeful

Keri Heath, Austin American-Statesman
·4 min read

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About halfway into the first 90-minute class period of the day, students at Mendez Middle School get up and change classrooms.

Some of the students easily grasped the class’s learning objective – identifying metaphors – and moved on to another room to tackle their next assignments. But for the students who scored low on a five-minute assessment in the middle of the period, they spent the next 45 minutes getting more instruction on metaphors.

“Our instructional model is a little different than most schools,” said Zach Craddock, executive director of schools for charter school company Third Future Schools.

Officials with the Colorado-based charter network, which has operated the Austin middle school since fall in an effort to bring the students' grades up to state standards, hope the model helps improve grades at Mendez Middle, which is facing its 10th year of low academic performance.

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Midyear data from Third Future indicate students at the long-ailing campus are on the right track, but officials caution it's too early to tell where students’ grades will sit by the end of the year.

On average, Mendez students’ scores have improved more than average seventh and eighth graders during the first semester, according to Third Future's data.

The campus only enrolled seventh and eighth grade students this year.

Aiven Luna and Marand Cotton discuss their reading lesson together at Mendez Middle School. Charter school company Third Future Schools was hired this summer to operate the school and bring up its students' academic achievement ratings.
Aiven Luna and Marand Cotton discuss their reading lesson together at Mendez Middle School. Charter school company Third Future Schools was hired this summer to operate the school and bring up its students' academic achievement ratings.

On assessments that compared student growth, Mendez students grew by 0.95 points in math over one semester and 0.52 points in reading, with 1.0 representing growth over an entire academic year.

Because the school and its students are behind, Third Future wants the campus’ scores to improve by 1.7 points of growth by the end of the school year, CEO Mike Miles said.

“It’s not good enough for schools to grow 1.0 in a year,” Miles said.

Students also improved by 0.66 points in science, according to the data.

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The school won’t get grade numbers to compare with last year until the end of the academic year, Miles said.

The Third Future model is fast-moving and on a recent, chilly Thursday morning the students — 22 maximum to a classroom — completed timed worksheets that covered a lesson their teacher had just taught.

Craddock peered in the classroom of a critical thinking class, where a teacher leans over a student’s worksheet to correct it. Feedback is immediate, he said.

“We’re not going to wait until tomorrow,” Craddock said. “We do it right now. We staff for it. We adjust the rooms. We want to make sure your demonstration of teaching happens at 45 minutes.”

Mendez Middle School Assistant Principal Jeremiah Willis works with Ian Mendez.
Mendez Middle School Assistant Principal Jeremiah Willis works with Ian Mendez.

The company hires additional aides who co-teach, fill in as substitutes when teachers are sick and can instruct breakout groups, he said.

It is a high intensity environment, but the school has to improve, said Delinda Castro, director of instruction for Third Future.

“We’re not doing them any favors if they can’t read,” Castro said. “In a school like this – that’s been failing for so many years – we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

Seventh grade reading teacher Sisten Lipsey instructs her students at Mendez Middle School Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. Third Future Schools was hired this summer to operate the school and bring up their academic achievement ratings.
Seventh grade reading teacher Sisten Lipsey instructs her students at Mendez Middle School Thursday, Jan. 12, 2023. Third Future Schools was hired this summer to operate the school and bring up their academic achievement ratings.

Third Future is not the first charter operator to work in Mendez Middle School.

The school has been in hot water since 2013, when it failed to meet state standards.

In Texas, a district in which a campus doesn’t reach state academic standards for five consecutive years could face state intervention, including the replacement of the district’s school board members with state-appointed trustees.

The Austin district has avoided such a drastic move partly because the state didn’t rate schools during the pandemic. Austin also has used a state law that allows districts to ward off state penalties by partnering with a charter school to turn around the troubled campus.

Zach Craddock, Third Future schools chief of schools, and Principal Brandon Thurston walk the halls at Mendez Middle School. “Our instructional model is a little different than most schools,” Craddock said.
Zach Craddock, Third Future schools chief of schools, and Principal Brandon Thurston walk the halls at Mendez Middle School. “Our instructional model is a little different than most schools,” Craddock said.

The district in 2021 ended its partnership with a nonprofit that ran the campus for four years after that group failed to bring the school up to state standards.

Third Future won’t get grade-specific data until the end of the year, so it’s too early to draw conclusions, but the trend is good, Miles said.

“We feel pretty good about it because the school has been chronically failing,” Miles said.

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This article originally appeared on Austin American-Statesman: Austin ISD: Mendez Middle Schools' midyear data have officials hopeful