Twelve of the 13 Katy ISD schools serving Cinco Ranch have earned the highest possible rating in the 2009 Accountability Ratings released by the Texas Education Agency. The 12 Cinco Ranch schools were all rated Exemplary, the highest of the four ratings assigned by the TEA, and one earned by only 25.8% of Texas public schools in 2009. An Exemplary rating means that a campus must have at least 90 percent of its students meet or exceed the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills (TAKS) standard on each subject, including Reading, English/Language Arts, Math, Writing, Social Studies and Science. A campus must also have a dropout rate of 2 percent or less to earn an Exemplary rating. For 2009, five Cinco Ranch schools increased their ratings to Exemplary from Recognized, the agency’s second highest rating. These include Cinco Ranch High School and Seven Lakes High School, along with three junior high schools – Beck, Beckendorff and Woodcreek. McMeans Junior High, rated Exemplary in 2008, retained that rating for 2009. All seven of the elementary schools serving Cinco Ranch kept their Exemplary ratings for 2009. These include Creech, Exley, Fielder, Griffin, Kilpatrick, Rylander and Williams elementary schools. The community’s eighth onsite elementary school, Stan C. Stanley Elementary, opens in August, 2009, and will receive a TEA rating in 2010. Cinco Ranch Junior High School received a TEA rating of Recognized, signifying that students met 75 percent of the TAKS standard on each subject. The Recognized rating was earned by 35.2% of all Texas schools in 2009. Of the 13 Katy ISD schools serving Cinco Ranch, 11 are located onsite in the 7,600-acre community. “We applaud the students and faculty of all of the great Katy ISD schools serving Cinco Ranch for their excellence in achievement,” said Heather Gould, marketing director for Newland Communities, developer of Cinco Ranch. “We also congratulate all the parents and community members for helping to make Cinco Ranch and Katy ISD one of the best places in the nation to get a great primary and secondary education.” The 2009 TEA ratings are the latest good news about Cinco Ranch schools. A recent study by Newsweek ranked Cinco Ranch High School and Seven Lakes High School within the top 2 percent of the nation’s high schools. The Newsweek study ranked schools based on the number of students taking Advanced Placement, International Baccalaureate or Cambridge tests, divided by the number of graduating seniors.