HUMBLE, Texas – A Humble ISD elementary school is celebrating a dramatic turnaround after improving its state accountability rating from an F to a B in just one school year.
Jack M. Fields Elementary posted a 24-point increase over its 2025 score—the largest year-to-year gain among Humble ISD campuses—according to the latest accountability ratings released by the Texas Education Agency.
Principal Angela Collins, who previously served as the school’s assistant principal, said she and her leadership team initially projected the campus would improve to a C. When she learned it had earned a B, she was overcome with emotion.
“I just started sobbing,” Collins said. “It was all of the emotions at one time. The hard work had paid off.”
Collins had been an assistant principal for three years before being named principal just days before the start of the 2025-2026 school year. She said her priority from the beginning was improving student achievement while convincing students that the school’s previous rating did not define their potential.
“I had to help the students understand that failure is really just an opportunity to grow,” Collins said.
During morning announcements, Collins highlighted successful people, including Olympic gymnast Simone Biles, who had overcome setbacks and challenges. She used their stories to teach students about perseverance, accepting feedback and continuing to work toward their goals.
“We all endure struggle, but it’s through overcoming those struggles, through persevering, through hard work, through listening to those coaches and listening to the teachers that we grow,” Collins said.
Tough decisions and a focus on students
Collins said the turnaround required difficult decisions involving staffing, campus positions, resources and spending. Some employees were let go, while others were moved into different roles across the campus.
“One of my first mentors told me, ‘Angela, when you become a principal, you’re going to have to make some tough decisions, and you always have to make decisions based on what’s best for kids,’” Collins said. “What’s best for children is not always what’s best for adults.”
Collins said every decision was made with students at the center.
The school also worked closely with families after the F rating was released. Collins and her instructional leadership team met with parents to explain the campus’s initial improvement plan and told them it would be adjusted throughout the year based on student progress.
Parents were also asked to reinforce lessons at home and make daily attendance a priority.
“Most importantly, we just needed them to get their students to school so that we could teach them,” Collins said.
Since the new rating was released, Collins said parents have contacted her through social media to express their excitement. The campus plans to celebrate with families during its Jack Fields Elementary Block Party on Aug. 28.
Turning a painful headline into motivation
Throughout the school year, Collins kept a newspaper article about the school’s F rating posted on the bulletin board above her desk.
She said the article was not intended as a reminder of failure. Instead, it became a daily source of motivation.
“At the end of the day, I wanted to prove that article wrong because I knew what I believed about our students and what I believed about our staff,” Collins said.
Keeping the article in view helped her remain focused on changing the public perception of the campus and its students, she said.
“I’m hopeful that the next newspaper article will come out to share that we went from an F to a B and that you can do that in one year,” Collins said. “My students worked really, really hard. My staff worked really, really hard.”
Humble ISD also improved its overall accountability rating from a C to a B.
Statewide, approximately 24% of Texas schools improved their ratings from the previous year, while 65% remained the same and 11% received lower ratings, according to TEA.
‘I believe in you’
Collins said the turnaround was driven not only by instructional plans and personnel decisions, but also by small, consistent efforts to build relationships with students.
After listening to a podcast about school turnaround work last October, Collins began ending each day’s announcements with the same message:
“You’re going to do hard things today, but I believe in you. I know you can do this. And if no one has told you today, I want you to know that I love you.”
Collins said she once forgot to deliver the message and received a phone call to the office reminding her.
“It’s not just the big things that we naturally think of in school improvement,” she said.
For principals now leading campuses that received F ratings, Collins recommends trusting their teams, seeking help when needed and remaining focused on students.
“You’re not expected as a leader to know it all,” Collins said. “You just have to know those people that you can reach out to and collaborate with—but always keep students at the center of all of those conversations.”
Parents can find accountability ratings for individual schools and districts through the Texas Education Agency’s website. The state’s A-F accountability system was established in 2017.