Still the report, released last week, said that three Scotland High schools failed to meet expected or high growth.
All three middle schools met expected or high growth. In total, 15 Scotland County Schools met high or expected growth, the report said.
Scotland County Community Schools Coordinator Andy Cagle said that the growth formula is different from the earlier released proficiency formula and that the unofficial numbers are mainly positive for the school system.
"We talked about being proficient, and that’s the percentage of students at each school that scored either a level 3 or a level 4 on their end of grade or end of course testing," Cagle said.
He added that there’s another component to the ABC’s accountability model — growth.
" What that is, is a formula that the state uses that tells how much a kid should improve from year to year," he said. "Even if a kid is not proficient, they can still grow. The model is based on previous test scores and things like that … the kids can see where they’re at, at the end of grade three, grade four and grade five and on through. They should at least be performing better, even if they’re not tracking to be proficient."
Overall, three schools moved from expected to high growth. In the elementary school ranks, Covington Street moved from expected growth in 2008-09 to high growth in 2009-10. Sycamore Lane also saw the same jump at the middle school level and Scotland High School's School of Leadership and Public Service also made the move up.
"Scotland County Schools had a very good year with our testing and our administrative accountability part," Cagle said. "Dr. Susan Chase has worked very hard to make sure that we’re doing everything we can and we’re raising that bar … we just did our strategic plan."
Director of Testing Accountability Ed Williams said that the growth formula is based on individual student needs and that despite differences in each school's proficiency, students can still meet growth requirements.
"It’s basically the expectation from each individual student and how that carries over to the school," Williams said. "Then that becomes the school expectation. The school goal is made up of individual expectations. That becomes the school goal based on individual (student) expectations."
Still, Williams said that final results could change.
"One of the things that everybody needs to understand too is that it’s unofficial," Williams said. "Raleigh may still be tweaking files and looking at various issues around the state. It could be a school raised issue that we raised or it could be a software issue that the state has found in their system and they’ll be tweaking right up until they give it to the state board."
Cagle said that support from school administrators is a big reason the schools are improving and continuing to grow.
"We have several more schools that didn’t meet growth last year, like Covington Street, but this year they’re high," Cagle said. "Washington Park didn’t meet growth last year, (while) this year they’re expected to. Sycamore Lane went from expected to high. So there has been some improvement, they’re definitely moving in the right direction. A couple of schools didn’t move in the right direction this year, but we understand why, and we’re working to fix those issues and as we move forward we got better this year and we’d like to be better next year. We’re heading in the right direction."
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