Seventeen Texas Panhandle schools have received federal designation as “priority” and “focus” schools — campuses that have performed in the bottom 15 percent of Title I schools statewide and are subject to federally prescribed sanctions, including closure.
As a condition of a waiver Texas received in September from the U.S. Department of Education for aspects of the No Child Left Behind Act, the lowest-performing 15 percent of schools statewide will face federally recommended sanctions if they do not make significant improvement in the next two years.