Conroe ISD elementary students saw mixed results in their first year using the state's Bluebonnet reading curriculum. Statewide data released Wednesday, Sept. 30, showed small gains for districts that adopted the materials.

The Texas Education Agency reported that 619 of roughly 1,200 Texas school districts used at least one Bluebonnet Learning program during the 2025-26 school year. Districts using the math materials saw year-over-year STAAR improvement 0.6 percentage points higher than non-adopting districts. Reading gains were slimmer at 0.2 percentage points, Community Impact first reported.

For Conroe ISD families, the picture is more complicated.

The district rolled out Bluebonnet reading and language arts (RLA) in grades K-5 last school year. Superintendent Curtis Null described the transition as a promising start in a June 15 letter to the community. He noted that more than half of all campuses showed accelerated growth and that third- and fourth-graders reached Meets or Masters proficiency at higher rates. Fifty-two percent of kindergarten and first-grade students met their projected growth goals.

But preliminary STAAR data told a rougher story in some grades. Third-grade reading scores dropped 6 percentage points year over year. Fourth-grade reading fell 5 points. Across 18 grade-level subjects tracked districtwide, performance improved in seven, declined in eight and held steady in three.

Whether the elementary reading dips stem from the Bluebonnet transition or other factors is not clear from available data. Null's letter acknowledged variance in certain areas without attributing it to the new curriculum.

The statewide numbers drew both praise and skepticism. Texas Education Commissioner Mike Morath said in the TEA's Sept. 30 news release that Bluebonnet is an important resource for helping schools focus on literacy and numeracy fundamentals. Zeph Capo, president of the Texas American Federation of Teachers, was less impressed. In an Oct. 1 statement to Community Impact, he called the gains small and questioned whether they were statistically significant.

"It may take a few more years to determine if this is a valid trend or simply an anomaly or noise in the data," Capo said.

The Bluebonnet curriculum, approved by the State Board of Education (SBOE) in November 2024 under House Bill 1605, is free for districts to use. Adopters receive up to $60 per student in additional state funding to purchase and print the materials. The SBOE in February directed the TEA to correct roughly 4,200 errors found in the materials, including factual mistakes and improperly licensed images.

Seventy-two districts using at least one Bluebonnet program earned an A accountability rating in 2025-26, the TEA said. Twenty-six of those had rated below an A the prior year. Conroe ISD has held a B rating, scoring 85 out of 100, for the 2023-24 and 2024-25 school years.

For the current school year, Null wrote in June that the district plans to focus on deeper implementation rather than introducing new programs. Conroe ISD is placing a reading and math interventionist at every elementary campus and piloting Bluebonnet reading in intermediate and junior high classrooms. The district is also adopting Savvas, a textbook publisher, for elementary math.

Null wrote that a curriculum audit showed the district has the potential to earn an A rating in 2027.