El Paso Independent School District's Compliance With the Accountability and Academic Assessment Requirements of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

We determined that the El Paso Independent School District, Bowie High School, and Coronado High School Adequate Yearly Progress results for 2009, 2010, and 2011, and the graduation rate data used for the 2009 and 2012 Adequate Yearly Progress calculations cannot be relied on because not all students took the necessary tests due to policies El Paso Independent School District put into place that prevented all applicable students from taking the test. We also determined that the Texas Education Agency (TEA) and El Paso Independent School District violated the academic and assessment requirements of the ESEA by allowing students to graduate from high school without taking the required test that counted towards Adequate Yearly Progress. In addition, we found that school district leadership designed an inadequate control environment and lacked adequate control activities to provide reasonable assurance of compliance with laws and regulations. As a result of the issues identified during the audit, El Paso Independent School District students’ civil rights may have been violated. Based on our audit findings, we recommended that the Department require TEA to determine the impact of these findings on El Paso, Bowie, and Coronado Adequate Yearly Progress results for 2009, 2010, 2011, and 2012, reconsider the previous Adequate Yearly Progress results, and take appropriate action; require TEA to develop policies, guidance, and internal controls and require TEA to direct El Paso to implement specific oversight mechanisms and internal controls; and work with the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights to determine whether students’ civil rights were violated.