Barrow County Schools fail to meet AYP standards

Results released last week by the Georgia Department of Education indicate that eight out of 14 Barrow County Schools failed to meet AYP standards. The AYP standards are goals set by the state for each school district and school within the state.

Bethlehem, Bramlett, County Line and Holsenbeck, Statham and Yargo Elementary Schools along with Winder-Barrow Middle School and Winder-Barrow High School were identified as the eight schools which failed to meet state requirements.

In a press release issued Friday, Superintendent of Barrow County Schools Dr. Ron Saunders stated, "The ever demanding AYP goals that are placed on our school system require harder and smarter work by everyone - system administrators, school administrators, teachers, parents, and most especially students.”

Saunders said he was proud that the school system met 780 out of 800 goals or 97.5 percent of the state requirement.

“There may be many reasons why we as a system do not make 100 percent of the goals; however, there are no excuses. We will continue to work to make sure all of our students achieve," he said.

LEFT BEHIND

While most of the system’s goals may have been met, certain categories of students showed consistently poor performance.

The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) requires that school systems release information regarding progress in meeting yearly performance standards to the public. The NCLB act requires the determination of AYP for both schools and districts as a way of ensuring that all children have an equal opportunity to receive a quality education.

Additionally, each category required by AYP must be met at the same rate for all students. In other words, the subgroups of students with disabilities, economically disadvantaged, English language learners (ELL), Hispanic, black, Asian/Pacific islander, American Indian, white, and multi-racial must meet the same academic standards as all students.

In the Barrow County School system, blacks, students with disabilities, English language learners and economically disadvantaged students struggled to meet standards.

In order to achieve a passing rate in each category, a specified percentage of students within that category were required to meet or exceed standards.

In CRCT mathematics, the passing standard was 59.5 percent. In Barrow County, only 53.4 percent of black students, 39.4 percent of students with disabilities, 51.6 percent of ELL students and 59.2 percent of economically disadvantaged students met or exceeded CRCT mathematics standards.

In CRCT language arts, the only category of students which failed to meet AYP standards were students with disabilities.

Black and economically disadvantaged students taking the Georgia high school graduation tests also fared poorly in Barrow County. According to results released by the state, both categories failed to meet AYP standards in mathematics and language arts.

Black students also graduated at a lower rate than other groups. The graduation rate for black students last year was 53.6 percent compared to 70.3 percent for white students, 65.2 for Hispanic students and 72.2 percent for Asian/Pacific islander.

BRIGHT SPOTS

Auburn Elementary School was one of the Barrow County Schools that did meet AYP standards. This year marks the sixth year in a row that the school has met state benchmarks for performance.

Auburn Elementary principal Shawn Williams said hard work and collaboration have led to success at the school.

“Teachers, students and parents are working together to pinpoint weaknesses and provide the necessary academic support in order for students to succeed,” he said. “Though we made AYP, we have areas in which we need to improve. Next year, our focus will be to improve scores in mathematics and writing. We can only revel in the fact that we achieved AYP for a while. We must quickly turn our efforts to next year and our quest for a World Class Education for our students.”
Apalachee High School also performed well during the past year.

Apalachee High School principal David McGee said the changing demographics of the student body and more difficult requirements make meeting AYP standards more challenging each year.

“I am so proud of our students for their focused efforts on their graduation tests and our faculty and staff for their commitment to providing the best every day at Apalachee High School," he said.

PLANS FOR IMPROVEMENT

Barrow County administrators have been working throughout the summer to analyze testing data for each school and develop plans for improving scores in the upcoming year.

Saunders said that the AYP scores were disappointing, but the school system will continue to focus on providing a quality education for all students.

“We have identified a key subject area (Math) that we will be concentrating on with our students who have needs of improvement,” he said. “Students with disabilities (SWD), black students, and economically disadvantaged students fell short of meeting state and federal requirements. Our challenge for the upcoming school year is to work tirelessly with these students so they can be successful on the CRCT and GHSGT given in the spring of 2009.”

“We ask that those who rely on Barrow County Schools to be successful (parents, community members, and most especially students) work with us as we meet the challenges of the No Child Left Behind," he said.