Five Round Rock ISD campuses were named Project Lead The Way (PLTW) Distinguished Schools for the 2020- 2021 school year. Campuses that received this recognition include Joe Lee Johnson Elementary STEAM Academy and McNeil, Round Rock, Stony Point and Westwood high schools.
This year, 22 elementary schools and 25 high schools received this distinction in the state of Texas. Round Rock ISD had the only campuses in Central Texas to earn the title of a PLTW Distinguished School.
These campuses have a history of earning high achievements from PLTW. This is the second consecutive year for Stony Point and Westwood to receive the title, the third for Round Rock and Joe Lee Johnson and and the fourth for McNeil. This year’s distinction makes McNeil the only school in the state to earn the title for four consecutive years.
The PLTW Distinguished School program is designed to honor campuses that have displayed a proven commitment to increasing student access, engagement, and achievement to PLTW programs. According to the organization, these campuses empower students to thrive in an evolving world and have achieved exemplary results from their PLTW programs.
To be eligible for the designation, elementary campuses had to offer at least two PLTW Launch modules at each grade level and have more than 75 percent of the student body participating during the school year. High schools were assessed under a different set of criteria which included:
- Offer at least three PLTW courses;
- Have 25 percent of students or more participate in PLTW courses, or of those who participated in PLTW, at least 33 percent took two or more PLTW courses during their high school tenure; and
- Have 95 percent of students take the End-of-Course (EoC) assessments.
