A year ago, thirteen Gainesville and Hall County schools failed to meet AYP, a requirement of the No Child Left Behind Act - eleven in the county and two in the city.
This year, seven are on the list. Six are in the county: Martin and White Sulphur elementary; East Hall High; and, East Hall, South Hall and North Hall Middle schools. The county school system plans to appeal on behalf of three of the schools: East Hall High, South Hall Middle and Martin Elementary. (Statewide, just over 81 percent of schools met AYP this year. See separate story).
Hall County Schools Superintendent Will Schofield calls the gains in the county school system "significant" but promises to spend "even more time and resources" on "rich and rigorous" 21st Century learning through special offerings in the county school system.
County schools AYP standards in all but 12 of the potential 1,200 indicators that must be met (99%).
"CRCT's are a measure of how well our most fragile learners are mastering very basic skills," Schofield said. "We will continue to work hard with our special education and English language learners to keep improving in this area. We have seen significant gains from our 2006 results with number of schools not making AYP dropping from eleven to six. However, we will spend even more time and resources focusing on increasing the opportunity for all Hall County students to participate in rich and rigorous twenty-first century learning through offerings such as International Baccalaureate, foreign language, dual enrollment, Renzulli Learning, honors and Advanced Placement classes."
Schofield added "Another interesting statistic we have been analyzing is that Hall County Schools enrolled approximately sixteen hundred and fifty (1,650) new elementary and middle school students this year. Those students' average scores on the CRCT were lower than our existing students in every category grades one through eight, with the greatest discrepancy being eighteen (18) points on the eighth grade math test."
http://accesswdun.com/article/2007/7/87537