KILLEEN, Texas (FOX 44) – Multiple school districts across Central Texas are joining the lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency also known as TEA. Several school districts say the new rating system makes it next to impossible to compare the ratings from previous years.

“It’s the lack of transparency in terms of the methodology behind why cut scores are moving and how drastic they’re moving. And then the timing of it, you know, being notified, you know, right before the school year,” says Temple Superintendent Dr. Bobby Ott.

Killeen’s school board approved a resolution Tuesday night to join the lawsuit. The district supports implementing increased standards but says they need adequate notices of changes to those standards.

“The hardest hit that districts took in Texas was the core score. I mean, we have we have all of our campuses improved dramatically, increased dramatically. And yet they all saw drops in performance levels,” says Killeen Superintendent Dr. Jo Ann Fey.

Temple also believes districts need more time and see the abrupt changes as a violation of state law. With unprecedented changes including volume of assessment and the lack of a transition year to implement new standards.

Districts like Killeen and Temple are concerned if new accountability ratings are put into place, improving districts will receive lower accountability ratings, despite improved student performance.

Dr. Fey says the ideal situation is to have more time to digest and consume the changes in order to plan accordingly for students.