Preliminary reports show all five Madison County elementary schools and the middle school making Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) marks.
“While we’re going to continue to improve, the news is pretty good,” Madison County Schools Superintendent Mitch McGhee said.
Madison County High School missed AYP for a fourth straight year, according to the initial report.
Last year, three schools — Danielsville Elementary School, the middle school and the high school — did not make AYP on the initial report. Danielsville Elementary and the middle school, however, reached AYP over the summer with CRCT retakes.
McGhee called this year’s report a “marked improvement” over 2008.
“The middle school and the elementary schools really did a great job,” he said.
As for the high school, it missed AYP in three categories this year, down from six last year.
“Which is progress; we’re not there yet,” McGhee said.
The high school fell short in overall math, economically disadvantaged students in math and economically disadvantaged student graduation rate.
McGhee noted that the high school’s overall graduation — 69.1 percent — meets AYP.
Graduation test re-takes may bump MCHS up to AYP in overall math and the economically disadvantaged student graduation rate.
But the school is 14 percentage points shy of the AYP mark in math for the economically disadvantaged subgroup.
McGhee said it’s unlikely MCHS will close the gap during summer retests.
“The likelihood of us making it on that criteria is not very good,” he said. “So we probably won’t make AYP at the high school level. But they’re going to give it their best shot.”
Schools find difficulty in getting some students to retake the graduation test.
Meeting AYP requires a score of 516, but a student only needs a 500 to pass.
McGhee said new Madison County High School principal Chad Stone, who attended Tuesday night’s meeting, is trying to offer incentives for students in that 500-515 range to retake the graduation tests.
