Summary
Travis Middle in Port Lavaca, TX, serves 693 students in grades 6-8 within the Calhoun County Independent School District (Isd), a coastal community where 73% of students qualify for free or reduced lunch. The school has recently shown improvement, moving from the 28th percentile to the 42nd percentile statewide, earning a 2-star rating, though it still ranks below the district average.
The most striking feature of Travis Middle is its exceptional Algebra I program. In the most recent school year, 84.62% of students taking the Algebra I End-of-Course exam were proficient—nearly double the state average of 54%. This performance is competitive with top-performing schools like Industrial J H, which scored 100% proficiency in Algebra I. However, this strength contrasts sharply with the school's general math program, where only 21.95% of 8th graders were proficient in standard math, less than half the state average. This 63-percentage-point gap suggests the school excels at accelerating a select group of students while the majority struggle. Compared to Bloomington J H, a lower-performing school in the region, Travis Middle outperforms in most subjects, such as 7th-grade reading (49.29% vs. 34.69%).
Despite academic challenges, Travis Middle maintains a very low dropout rate of 0.4%, indicating strong student engagement. The school has shown recent progress in serving male students and those from low socio-economic backgrounds, but it struggles significantly with special education students, who ranked in the 19th percentile. Notably, per-student spending at Travis Middle ($10,439) is nearly identical to both Industrial JH ($10,398) and Bloomington JH ($10,484), suggesting that funding is not the primary factor driving performance differences. The school's main challenge is to replicate the success of its advanced math program across the broader student body, particularly in 8th-grade math, and to provide more consistent support for all student groups.
Thank you for your feedback!