Two campuses of the Lampasas Independent School District were rated "recognized" by the Texas Education Agency when its 2009 accountability ratings were released recently.

Hanna Springs Intermediate earned the ranking, and Kline Whitis Elementary, as a feeder school, automatically was designated recognized.

"Academically acceptable" ratings were given to Lampasas High School, Lampasas Middle School and the district as a whole.

Ratings range from the highest, "exemplary," to the lowest, "academically unacceptable," with "recognized" and "academically acceptable" in the middle.

The accountability system -- created over 15 years ago -- assigns ratings to each public school campus and district in Texas based largely on state test results and dropout rates.

To be recognized, a district must have 75 percent of its students pass all portions of the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills: reading/ language arts, writing, social studies, mathematics and science.

Most campuses are struggling with the science portions of TAKS, and more specifically with vocabulary related to that subject, said Nelda Fortune-Crawford, LISD assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction.

"As students get in the higher grades, the vocabulary gets very difficult for them, and teaching vocabulary with the regular concepts of science will help us go a long way to improving our scores," she said.

Science teachers have undergone training to combine teaching content and vocabulary. "We have placed a greater emphasis on vocabulary, and our teachers are going through staff development for more effective strategies to teach both to- gether," she said.

Mrs. Fortune-Crawford said both academically acceptable campuses were very close to the recognized mark. She also believes Hanna Springs Intermediate could be ranked exemplary within the next two years. "That's the direction it's going in."

The LISD still needs to make some progress on its math scores in special populations. "We target those students with special tutoring time for students in kindergarten through eighth grade," said Mrs. Fortune-Crawford.

Is the LISD making progress? "We are not where we want to be, but we won't stop working on it. We have some good things going on in our district," she said.

"This year we will have three kindergarten through third-grade campuses, and with smaller populations in each school, hopefully the principals will have more time to spend in the classrooms with the teachers.

"I look forward to us making more improvements by the end of the school year. It's an exciting time, and I think it's going to be a great year."

* * * Lometa Independent School District's lone campus was ranked "academically acceptable."

* * *

Across the state, the number of districts and campuses earning either "exemplary" or "academically unacceptable" ratings grew.

Though increased passing rates on state tests contributed to considerable gains in the number of exemplary schools and districts, high school completion rates and science test scores caused the number of academically unacceptable districts to increase to its highest level since 1994.

This year, 117 districts were named exemplary -- up from 43 last year -- while the number of schools earning exemplary ratings more than doubled from 1,000 last year to 2,151 in 2009. That represents about 26 percent of the campuses statewide.

The number of districts ranked academically unacceptable nearly tripled from the previous year, from 32 in 2008 to 87 this year. The Texas Education Agency said that is the highest number of academically unacceptable districts in the history of the state's accountability system.

And the number of academically unacceptable campuses across the state increased to 270, up from 202 in 2008.