Community-Based Accountability 

Learn about FBISD’s development of Community Based Accountability System (CBAS)

Fort Bend ISD is committed to providing an exceptional educational system where all students can reach their full potential, in accordance with the skills and attributes of the FBISD Profile of a Graduate.

Our Board strongly believes that the District is accountable to the community for fulfilling the Hopes and Dreams they have for their children and their futures.   The A-F accountability system, which is driven by a singular accountability measure drawn from a child’s performance on state assessments, is a partial accounting and does not adequately represent the comprehensive work of the district regarding developing the whole child.

With this in mind, FBISD is proud to be one of more than 50 districts in the state that have joined together to build a better accountability framework – with our community– so that we can measure success in a way that is more meaningful and productive, and goes beyond mere snapshot data from high-stakes standardized tests.

About the CBAS development:

Fort Bend ISD has joined the Texas Public Accountability Consortium, or TPAC, with more than 50 other school districts across Texas to create a truer accountability framework to assess the District’s progress and measure its success.

District staff meet regularly with leaders from other Districts to identify and establish the components of a true accountability system that go beyond STAAR test scores to measure how districts prepare students for futures beyond what they can imagine.

Throughout the 2018-19 school year, a design team including Grayle James as Board Representative, along with FBISD administrators, teachers and campus leaders has worked to develop the District’s CBAS Framework including the development of key questions. Following this work, six campuses signed on to pilot the system during the 2019-20 school year, with an additional ten campuses beginning their learning about CBAS in anticipation of implementing the CBAS framework in 2020-21.   The remaining campuses will engage in learning in 2020-21 so that by 2021-22 district-wide implementation will be in place.

About the CBAS Framework

Components of the CBAS include seven pillars, compared to the state’s accountability system, which is based on a single STAAR (State of Texas Assessments of Academic Readiness) assessment. These pillars were developed by TPAC, in partnership with school leaders throughout the state and country, and represent the standards of effective schools.

Seven Pillars 

The seven pillars include: 

• student learning and progress,
• student readiness,
• engaged and well-rounded students,
• community engagement and partnerships,
• professional learning and quality staff,
• fiscal and operational systems, and
• the safety and well-being of our students. 

Accountability Engine

The accountability engine defines the process we undertake to assess our priorities in order to ensure our decisions are focused on reaching our intended outcomes.  As such, the accountability engine includes establishing what we are trying to accomplish and defining evidence we will accept that we are accomplishing this important work.