The Ed Brune and Cailloux Charter Schools of Big Springs Ranch for Children and Hill Country Youth Ranch have earned the prestigious Gold Medal Acknowledgement from the Texas Education Agency. This recognition is awarded to Texas Public Schools for high performance on indicators of academic performance through state assessment testing. The announcement came in November.

The Ed Brune Charter School received Gold Performance Acknowledgement by having more than 25% of student examinees score at or above the TAKS commended performance standard in Writing, Science, and Social Studies.

The Cailloux Charter School received this high recognition by posting a student attendance rate of over 95% and more than 25% of student examinees scoring at or above the TAKS commended performance standard in Reading/English Language Arts.

We wish to congratulate the Instructional Leaders of our three charter school campuses, Maria De La Cruz, Lew "Tripp" Davenport, and Albert Hernandez, along with all the teachers and staff for helping our students learn and perform at this level. The Charter School’s professionally certified education staff continue to find better methods for assisting our children not only in learning required academic material, but also in preparing them for long term success in family, social, vocational, and continuing education areas.

The addition in early 2009 of the Harvey Najim Middle School at Hill Country Youth Ranch will provide additional resources to continue this success in teaching our children and preparing them for a positive future.