SAN MARCOS CISD
At the Jan. 20 San Marcos Consolidated ISD School Board meeting, the Office of Academics presented the second quarter review of key performance indicators compared to the first quarter and the previous year. Each quarter is measured in nine-week increments.
Attendance numbers were lower this quarter but only by .58% in elementary, 1.11% in middle school and .87% in high school. The district’s target for attendance is 95%, with elementary reporting 94.04% in the second quarter, middle school reporting 94.55% and high school reporting 93.66%. Attendance is up compared to the second quarter of last year.
“Dr G. [San Marcos High School Principal Twila Guajardo] and her team are really stressing the importance of coming to school every day and it’s showing as with the data going up one point,” Director of Student Services & Family Engagement Darren Cole-Ochoa said.
Discipline referrals increased in elementary, middle and high school. Elementary saw 32 total referrals in the first quarter with 79 reported in the second quarter. Middle school saw 201 total referrals in the first quarter with 355 reported in the second quarter. High school saw 196 total referrals in the first quarter with 319 reported in the second quarter.
”The reason behind that we are thinking is that we do have a lot of new teachers at the elementary level; they are still learning classroom management, they are still learning how to decide what is a classroom referral that they’ll handle and one that goes to an administrator,” Cole-Ochoa said. “During our new teacher orientation throughout they year they get classroom management strategies. They learn how to talk with students. They learn how to de-escalte situations so that is something we are going to be continuing working on throughout the whole school year.”
Cole-Ochoa also stated that referrals typically go up during November and December since students get excited about the holiday breaks and teachers have to work to maintain the classroom environment.
Compared to the second quarter of last year in 2024, discipline referrals are down this year. Middle school saw 460 total referrals in the second quarter of 2024 which went down by 105 referrals for a total of 355 in the second quarter of 2025. High school saw a drop of 74 referrals from the second quarter in 2024 to the second quarter in 2025, taking the total number of referrals from 393 to 319.
On the middle school level, this decrease is attributed to encouraging teachers to work with their director of guidance and counseling to focus on restorative practices rather than referrals. The approach in high school was to lessen out of school suspension.
“If we can just put them in ISS they are in school, yes they are in a timeout, but at least they’re still at school and at least they are learning,” Cole-Ochoa said.
