When the State Board of Education gave Limestone County Schools a low B on their most recent report card, the district responded to the disappointing marks by declaring, “We are more than a score.”

Of the 16 county school systems in North Alabama, not a single district received an A. Seven received B’s, and nine earned C’s. Huntsville City Schools ended up with a C, while Madison City Schools received a solid A.

Dr. Tom Sisk, superintendent of Limestone County Schools, has taken issue with the report card’s grading system, calling it “controversial.”

“A child is so much more than one test,” Sisk said.

The test to which Sisk is referring is the ACT Aspire. Sisk said the test is given far too much weight, providing little more than an inaccurate glimpse of a student’s performance.

“In a memo, from the United States Board of Education to the state Board, they wrote that the ACT Aspire test does not align with our current course of study,” he said. “The state Board agreed and determined that the 2016-2017 school year would be the last year they would use the test to evaluate the academic portion of the report card.”

Sisk pointed out several other areas where he thought the report card fell short, including its consideration of English as a Second Language students.

“The test does not give any modifiers,” he said. “The fact is, we have some major pockets of poverty, a higher-than-average population of special education students and a large group of ESL students.”

ESL students are also known as English-Language Learners, or ELL students. According to to a flier created by the Limestone County Schools Public Relations Department, the district currently serves 311 ELL students, of which 76 are first-year students.

“How can you expect a child to perform well on a test that is in a language they do not yet fully understand?” Sisk asked.

When it comes to special education, Sisk said that while 85 percent of county students with an Individualized Education Plan graduate, having such a large percentage of students in special education programs affects overall graduation rates.

Graduation rate is one of the factors used to calculate a district’s score on the report card.

Another issue Sisk found was with the age of the information. The recently released report cards are based on student performance in the 2015-2016 school year, which Sisk said is problematic.

“People look at the report cards and think that this is how we are performing now,” Sisk said. “But those scores are based on data that is essentially two years old.”

Sisk worries that the B score may interfere with the county’s ability to attract new businesses.

“A lot of these companies are foreign-based, and they put a lot of emphasis on education,” he said.

However, he is confident his district will be able to pull up their score over the next few years by concentrating on absenteeism and accurate record-keeping.

Scores for individual schools and districts throughout Alabama can be found at http://bit.ly/EducationReportCard.