Spruce High School underwent a massive reorganization this school year as concerns loomed that the state might close the consistently low-performing campus this summer. It appears the effort paid off.

Dallas ISD Superintendent Michael Hinojosa announced Tuesday that Spruce has made massive gains on the Texas Assessment of Knowledge and Skills, according to preliminary numbers, and the Pleasant Grove school is no longer in danger of closing. Spruce received the state's lowest rating – academically unacceptable – for four consecutive years.

Hinojosa also said that Samuell High School, also poorly performing for four straight years, is fairly certain to make it off the state's low-performing list as well.

He said some had lost faith that the schools could turn things around. But he declared near victory Tuesday.

"Spruce has made it beyond any shadow of a doubt. We're about 95 percent comfortable with Samuell."

DISD officials had already planned to turn the campuses into magnet schools if they went into a fifth year at low-performing status and were closed by the state. It's unclear now where those plans stand, but it's certain that the district is no longer tied to them.

"Those contingency plans will not be necessary," Hinojosa said.

To turn around Spruce, the district gutted the campus of most of its staff and students last summer. This school year, only new ninth-grade students and seniors who chose to return to graduate were allowed at the campus. Samuell, also in Pleasant Grove, did not undergo such an overhaul because it had made some progress, unlike Spruce.

The Spruce reorganization was probably the largest in the district. Hundreds of sophomores and juniors were sent to Madison and Lincoln high schools. Ninth-graders who were repeating the grade were sent to an alternative school. And no more than 25 percent of staffers could return this school year.

Lucy Davila Hakemack was brought in as principal last July. She had been at the district's Early College High School at Mountain View College. Hakemack assembled a new staff, created magnet-like programs for the freshmen and oversaw a thorough cleaning of the school.

She also arrived with a list of rules. Students were to be engaged and motivated. Staffers were to maintain professionalism with students. And no students were to be taken on field trips that weren't educational. She told a band director last summer that he could still take students to competitions but that the kids should be reviewing lessons while riding in the bus.

Hakemack said Tuesday that the students are excited about getting off the low-performing list. A major factor in the turnaround, she said, was that staffers believed in the students.

"I believed in them and the teachers believed in them," she said. "I chose people who love kids."

The biggest challenge at Spruce has been the TAKS math exam. Last school year, just 20 percent of ninth-grade students passed; nearly 63 percent passed this year, preliminary results show.

Hakemack said math teachers worked hard to bring up the scores.

"We worked during spring break. We worked after school," she said. "We knew the challenge. We knew what we had to do."

At Samuell, principal Israel Cordero said a "sense of emergency" made the difference at his school.

District officials were analyzing preliminary TAKS scores throughout the district Tuesday. Hinojosa said ratings for a few schools may have slipped but the results show that the district made improvements in all subject areas. He said the number of academically unacceptable schools would be greatly reduced. He said seven or eight of the 12 academically unacceptable campuses being monitored by the state would come off the list.

Spruce PTA president Jerrie Ward-Titus said the school should throw a big party to celebrate the scores.

"We proved that it could be done," she said. "It's great."