Summary
Callisburg Elementary in Gainesville, TX, serves 531 students from Pre-K through 5th grade within the Callisburg Independent School District (Isd), a mid-sized district ranked in the middle of the pack statewide. The school has experienced a dramatic and sustained decline in academic performance over the past decade, dropping from a top-tier 93rd percentile ranking in 2015-2016 to a 2-star rating in the 31st percentile for the 2025-2026 school year. This steep fall is unique among nearby schools—for example, Lindsay Elementary has remained consistently high-performing in the 71st-76th percentile, while Collinsville Elementary has shown slight improvement. The school’s spending per student ($8,373) is on the lower end compared to neighbors like S And S Cons Elementary ($10,117) and Valley View Elementary ($12,951), raising questions about resource allocation.
A critical area of concern is the severe and worsening performance gap for students from low socio-economic backgrounds, who rank in the 11th percentile in 2025-2026. Mathematics is a particular weakness, with proficiency rates significantly below the state average at every grade level—for instance, only 29.35% of 4th graders were proficient in math compared to the state’s 49.28%, a 20-point gap. This math challenge has persisted for years, with 4th-grade scores consistently low. In contrast, the school shows notable strengths in its Gifted & Talented program, which ranked in the 95th percentile in 2022-2023, creating a “barbell” effect where high-achieving students thrive while at-risk populations struggle.
An interesting finding is a temporary “COVID bump” during 2020-2021, when targeted interventions briefly lifted overall performance to the 73rd percentile, but this success was not sustained, and scores for vulnerable groups subsequently plummeted. The contrast with Lindsay Elementary, just 12.77 miles away, highlights the strong link between socioeconomic factors and outcomes—Lindsay has a very low poverty rate (7.09% free/reduced lunch) compared to Callisburg’s 46.7%. For parents, the key takeaway is that Callisburg Elementary is at a crossroads: it once excelled but now faces urgent challenges in supporting its at-risk students, particularly in math, while its advanced programs remain a bright spot.
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