The Alabama State Department of Education released state report card grades this weekend, with both county and city schools earning low “B’s.”

Based primarily on data gathered during the 2017-2018 school year, the ALSDE provides overall letter grades to each school district and to individual schools within those systems.

As a whole, Alabama’s K-12 schools showed significant improvement compared to last year, going from a “C+” to a “B,” with no districts receiving an “F.”

Compared to last year, Limestone County Schools dropped 1 percentage point from an overall score of 83 to an 82. Tanner, Cedar Hill, Elkmont, Piney Chapel and Sugar Creek elementary schools and Tanner High School received scores in the 70s.

Despite slipping a bit, Brad Lewis, director of curriculum for LCS, notes that the system has seen progress in a number of areas.

“Our goal has been and remains to get better,” he said. “The letter grade is a snapshot of the school and a conversation starter for our communities. It is not about pointing fingers. It is intended to be a catalyst for discussion and improvement.”

The Alabama State Report Card evaluates schools on a wide range of criteria, including academic achievement, academic growth, graduation rates, college- and career-ready data, chronic absenteeism and enrollment by student subgroups.

In a recent statement, State Superintendent of Education Eric Mackey said the report provides valuable information about a school or school system, but it does not cover everything.

“Based primarily on a particular assessment, it is a snapshot in time,” Mackey said. “When stacked together year after year, similar to snapshots of your family, these pictures of school academic performance can certainly be used to monitor academic progress and growth.”

Dr. Trey Holladay, superintendent of Athens City Schools, said he was “not disappointed” that his system again received a “B,” dropping slightly from an overall score of 81 down to 80. According to the report card, all city schools earned a “B” except Athens Renaissance School, which received a “C.” Last year’s highest-performing school, iAcademy at Athens Elementary, slipped from an “A” to a “B,” while SPARK Academy at Cowart Elementary showed the most improvement, moving up 10 points from 72 to an 82. Athens Middle and Athens Intermediate schools also showed marked improvement.

Holladay said their lowest-scoring school, ARS, would have had a higher grade if the ALSDE had based its findings on last year’s college and career numbers instead of information from the 2016-2017 school year.

“Two years ago, they were only at 14 percent in that category,” he said. “Last year, they brought that number up to 90 percent, which is why I say the numbers are a bit skewed for Athens Renaissance.”

Although Holladay said he would have liked his system to have scored higher in the academic achievement category, he was pleased to see the majority of his schools improved when it came to academic growth. Academic growth and graduation rates account for 30 percent each on the report card.

Academic achievement

Unlike in year’s past, the Scranton test was used to measure academic achievement in grades 3 through 8 instead of the ACT Aspire. Educators often criticized the ACT Aspire test, claiming the questions did not align with what was being taught in the classroom.

Based on the Scranton tests, Alabama students showed higher proficiency levels overall.

At the high school level, the ACT college entrance exam, given to all 11th graders, is used as the achievement measure. Three parts of the ACT — English, math and science — are used in the calculation.

Academic growth

Academic growth was measured differently this year. Additional tests were given to all students in grades 3 through 8 during the year to gauge growth from the beginning to the end of the school year.

Holladay said that growth is a better indicator of student progress than raw achievement, especially in Alabama, where poverty trends high.

“Growth is a big deal to us,” he said. “The connections we have with kids and the opportunities we offer don’t necessarily translate into super-high achievement scores. But the connections our students have with their teachers and the connections teachers have with our parents is big piece of what we do. For us, those connections are just as important as the achievement piece, and that is hard to quantify on a report card,” he added. “Our mission statement says we are a community school district, test scores are not our only focus.”

Holladay said he was happy to see the ALSDE made adjustments this year as to how they calculated chronic absenteeism, a measure that counts for 10 percent of a school’s grade.

Previously, students were counted as absent while on school-related field trips, which Holladay said wasn’t fair. This time around, schools are not penalized for students who miss school because of field trips.

A complete list of state report cards will be available at www.aldse.edu on Monday, Dec. 31.