The Texas Girls School Earns a 92/100 “A” Rating From TEA
The Texas Girls School (TTGS) earned an overall “A” rating from the Texas Education Agency (TEA) in its very first year of operation, posting an accountability score of 92 out of 100. That places TTGS in the top rating category under the state’s A–F accountability system — a category most Texas schools don’t reach. In the same 2026 ratings cycle that scored TTGS, only 24% of Texas campuses earned an A, while 34% earned a B — meaning a “B” is actually the single most common grade a Texas school receives. If you’re comparing schools for your daughter and an A rating matters to you, here’s exactly what TTGS’s score means, how it was calculated, and how to verify it — or any school’s — for yourself.
TTGS’s TEA Accountability Score, in Full
Under Texas’s A–F accountability system, schools are scored on a 0–100 scale and assigned a letter grade. 90-100 points equals an A rating.
TTGS’s full first-year results:
| Domain | Score | Grad |
|---|---|---|
| Overall | 92 | A |
| Student Achievement | 93 | A |
| School Progress | 94 | A |
| Academic Growth (School Progress, Part A) | 94 | — |
| Closing the Gaps | 88 | B |
Every individual score TTGS posted in its first year fell in the A range except Closing the Gaps, which still landed solidly in the B range at 88 — just two points from an A itself.
What Does an “A” Overall Rating Actually Mean?
According to TEA, schools earn an A (a score of 90–100) for exemplary performance — meaning they serve most students well, encourage high academic achievement and appropriate academic growth for nearly all students, and prepare most students for eventual success in college, a career, or the military. It’s the state’s top rating category, one level above “acceptable” and reserved for schools performing well above the baseline.
How Is the Overall Score Calculated?
The overall score isn’t a simple average of the three domains — TEA’s formula is specifically designed to reward both high achievement and strong growth, while still holding schools accountable for how they serve every student group:
- TEA takes the higher of a school’s two main scores: Student Achievement (how much students know, based on STAAR performance, graduation rates, and college/career/military readiness) or School Progress (how much better students are doing compared to last year, or compared to similar schools). That higher score makes up 70% of the overall rating.
- TEA then factors in Closing the Gaps — how well the school serves every student group, including economically disadvantaged students and English learners — which makes up the remaining 30%.
For TTGS, School Progress (94) was the higher of the two main scores, so it drove 70% of the overall rating; Closing the Gaps (88) supplied the other 30%. That combination is what produced TTGS’s overall score of 92 — an A in a system explicitly built to reward schools that both perform well and serve all their students well, not just their strongest ones.
Seven Distinction Designations
Beyond the overall A rating, TTGS earned seven Distinction Designations from TEA — special recognitions given only to campuses that outperform other schools with similar size, grade span, and student populations. TTGS earned distinctions in five categories, two of which are awarded separately at both the campus and district level:
- Academic Achievement in Reading/Language Arts — top-tier STAAR performance in reading and language arts compared to similar campuses
- Academic Achievement in Mathematics — top-tier STAAR performance in math compared to similar campuses
- Top 25 Percent: Comparative Academic Growth — awarded when a campus’s School Progress (Part A) raw score ranks in the top quartile of its comparison group of similar campuses. In plain terms: among schools that look like TTGS on paper, TTGS’s students grew academically faster than roughly three out of every four of them.
- Top 25 Percent: Comparative Closing the Gaps — the same top-quartile standard, applied to how well the school is closing performance gaps between student groups
- Postsecondary Readiness, recognized at both the campus and district level — a signal that students are being prepared not just to pass a test, but to succeed after graduation
Distinction Designations are optional, comparison-based recognitions — a school can earn an A rating without any of them. TTGS earned seven in its first year.
Why an A Rating Is a Meaningful Signal (Not Just a Nice Number)
It’s easy for “A rating” to become marketing shorthand. The statewide numbers show why it shouldn’t be. TEA released its 2026 A–F accountability ratings on August 14, 2026 — the same day TTGS announced its own results — covering more than 9,000 campuses statewide. The breakdown:
| Grade | Percentage Attained |
|---|---|
| A | 24% |
| B | 34% |
| C | 23% |
| D | 10% |
| F | 4% |
B, not A, is the most common grade a Texas school receives. Fewer than one in four campuses statewide earned an A. For a school in its first year of operation — with no track record, no returning-student data from prior years, and a brand-new staff and campus — landing in that top 24% is a meaningfully high bar to clear, not a formality.
How to Check Any School’s TEA Rating Yourself
You don’t have to take a school’s word for its rating — TEA publishes every campus’s full results publicly, and you can look up TTGS or any other school you’re considering in a couple of minutes:
- Go to txschools.gov, TEA’s official public school ratings site.
- Search for the school by name, city, or district.
- Each school’s profile shows its overall letter grade, its scores across all three domains, and any Distinction Designations it earned.
It’s a useful step to take for every school on your list, not just TTGS — an A-rated school and a D-rated school can sit two blocks apart, and the only way to know which is which is to check.
The Bigger Picture: A Fast-Growing First Year
TTGS opened its doors in August 2025 with founding students in grades 6 and 7. It has since expanded to serve grades 6 through 8, and enrollment has grown more than 70% heading into its second year. As founder and superintendent Dana Stuart Browning put it when the ratings were announced:
“This A rating belongs to our founding students, families, faculty and staff, who showed up every day and built something extraordinary together. We set out to create a school where girls are challenged, nurtured and prepared to lead through rigorous STEM learning, high expectations and a community designed to help them thrive. These results show what is possible when girls are given the opportunity and support to reach their full potential. We are incredibly proud, deeply grateful and just getting started.”
TTGS’s first-year results also sit alongside its membership in the Young Women’s Preparatory Network, the statewide network of all-girls, public, college-preparatory schools known for producing outcomes well above the norm — context that helps explain how a first-year school built its model to perform this well this quickly. Read more about our academic approach and mission.
Frequently Asked Questions
What TEA rating did The Texas Girls School earn? TTGS earned an overall “A” rating from the Texas Education Agency in its first year of operation (2025–26), with an accountability score of 92 out of 100.
Is an “A” rating hard to get in Texas? Yes, relatively. In the 2026 statewide ratings, only 24% of Texas campuses earned an A, while 34% — the largest share — earned a B. A rating is TEA’s top performance category.
How is the overall TEA score calculated? TEA takes the higher of a school’s Student Achievement or School Progress score (worth 70% of the total) and combines it with the school’s Closing the Gaps score (worth 30% of the total) to produce a 0–100 overall score, which maps to a letter grade.
What are Distinction Designations, and how many did TTGS earn? Distinction Designations are special recognitions TEA gives to campuses that outperform similar schools in specific areas. TTGS earned seven, across five categories: Academic Achievement in Reading/Language Arts, Academic Achievement in Mathematics, Top 25 Percent Comparative Academic Growth, Top 25 Percent Comparative Closing the Gaps, and Postsecondary Readiness.
How can I check a school’s TEA rating myself? Visit txschools.gov and search for any Texas school by name. Every public school’s overall rating, domain scores, and Distinction Designations are published there.
Is TTGS’s A rating unusual for a school in its first year? It’s uncommon. First-year schools typically have no track record and limited historical data to draw on. TTGS’s 92/100 score placed it in the same top rating category as far more established campuses.
See the Results for Yourself
An A rating is a strong signal, but it’s still just a number until you’ve seen the classrooms it came from. Schedule a campus tour to see how TTGS’s students, teachers, and program earned it — or start an application at texasgirlsschool.org/enrollment.
About the author: Dana Stuart Browning is the Founder and Superintendent of The Texas Girls School, which opened its doors in Northwest Austin in 2025 to bring a tuition-free, all-girls STEM education to families across the region.