When should a Texas superintendent send the STAAR results newsletter?

Send it the same week TEA releases results, ideally within 48 hours of the public release. Families who hear about scores from the news before they hear from you start the conversation skeptical. The window between TEA's release and the first local news cycle is narrow, often less than two days. Plan the draft before results land so you can fill in numbers and send.

How do you explain STAAR proficiency levels to parents who do not speak data?

Use the four performance labels TEA uses (Did Not Meet, Approaches, Meets, Masters) and define them in one sentence each. Then give the percentage of students at Meets or above for the district and the prior year. Skip raw scale scores in the family newsletter. Save those for the board memo and the data appendix linked at the bottom.

Do Texas districts have to communicate STAAR results to families in Spanish?

Federal Title VI and Texas Education Code Chapter 29 require meaningful access for families with limited English proficiency, which in practice means a Spanish version of any major communication. Run the Spanish copy past a bilingual staff member, not just a translation tool. Families notice when the Spanish reads like it came out of Google Translate.

What if our STAAR results dropped this year?

Lead with the number. Then explain what drove it (curriculum transition, demographic shift, attendance, whatever the data shows). Then describe the specific response. Families forgive a difficult year. They do not forgive evasion. A district that names a decline plainly and shows a plan keeps trust. A district that buries the number loses it.

What tool should we use to send STAAR communications to thousands of Texas families?

Daystage was built for district-wide sends and renders the newsletter inline in Gmail and Outlook, which is where Texas parents actually open email. It handles Spanish and English versions in the same send, keeps district branding consistent across campuses, and gives you open data so you know which families saw the results communication and which still need a follow-up. That last piece matters most when STAAR results are the headline.

How Texas Superintendents Communicate STAAR

STAAR results week is the most scrutinized communication window of the year for a Texas superintendent. TEA releases the data, local TV picks it up by the next morning, real estate listings update within the week, and families form an opinion about the district before you have written a sentence. The superintendents who hold community trust through that cycle are the ones who get their version out first, in plain language, with the numbers stated clearly.

Here is how to write the STAAR results newsletter so it lands well, whether the results are strong, mixed, or difficult.

Get ahead of the public release

Draft the structure of the newsletter before TEA releases data. You already know the format. You already know the campuses. The only thing missing is the numbers. When results come in, you slot them in, run the Spanish version, and send. A 24-hour turnaround between TEA release and your family communication is the standard to aim for.

Districts that wait three or four days to communicate end up reacting to the local news angle instead of setting it. By then the framing is no longer yours.

State the headline numbers in the first paragraph

The first paragraph names the percentage of students who scored at Meets Grade Level or above in reading and in math, district-wide, with the prior year's number for comparison. That is it. Save subgroup detail, campus breakdowns, and historical trend for later sections.

Families who only read the first paragraph (most of them) should walk away knowing the basic answer to "how did our district do this year."

Show the multi-year trend, not just the snapshot

A single year of STAAR data is noise. The story is in the trend. Show three years of district-wide proficiency rates side by side. If results dropped this year but the three-year line is still up, that is meaningful context. If the three-year line is flat or down, families deserve to see that plainly.

A simple bar chart with three columns is enough. Skip the dense data tables. Those belong in the appendix.

Address subgroup gaps directly

Texas reports STAAR results by economic status, English learner status, race, and special education status. If your district has meaningful gaps (most do), name them. Pretending the district-wide average is the whole story when it masks a 25-point gap for English learners is the kind of communication failure that ends careers.

Phrase it factually: "Our economically disadvantaged students scored 18 points below the district average in math at grade 5. Closing that gap is the focus of next year's instructional plan."

Connect results to the district's strategic plan

Families want to know that STAAR results are not just a report card the district reads and files. They want to know what changes because of the data. Reference the specific strategic plan goals tied to the results. If reading is up because of the K to 2 phonics rollout from two years ago, say so. If math is flat despite a curriculum change, name that too and describe what the response is.

Include a link to campus-level data

Do not bury campus-level results inside the body of the newsletter. Link to the district's STAAR results page where families can see their child's specific campus. Include the line "your campus principal will share campus-specific results in their next family update by [date]" so families know what to expect.

Daystage handles district-wide sends with consistent branding across all campuses, so the principal-level follow-ups feel like part of the same conversation, not five different communications from five different sources.

Example opening for a mixed-results year

"TEA released our 2026 STAAR results this week. District-wide, 54% of students scored at Meets Grade Level or above in reading, up from 51% last year. In math, 47% scored at Meets Grade Level or above, down from 49% last year. Reading is the third year in a row of growth. Math is a one-year decline that we believe is connected to the new curriculum's first-year implementation, and the response plan is described below. We are sharing the full numbers, including by campus and student group, on the district's STAAR results page. Your campus principal will follow up with campus-specific results by Friday, June 5."

What to do next

Before TEA's next release window, write the template. Get it approved by your communications team and your bilingual reviewer. Set up the audience list in your newsletter tool. When results land, you will be sending within hours instead of scrambling for days, and the community will hear the district's voice first.

How Texas Superintendents Communicate STAAR Results to Families