More schools earn A’s, B’s from state
Area improves, but Orange high schools drop
Central Florida’s public schools earned more A’s and B’s and fewer F’s on the state’s 2017 school report card released Wednesday.
Despite the good news for many school administrators, Orange County’s high-school grades fell this year, leaving the region’s largest school district with no A-rated high schools. The four schools with A’s last year — Boone, Olympia, Timber Creek and Winter Park high schools — all dropped to B’s this year.
Orange administrators attributed the decline to a quirky combination of lower high-school math scores, brought on in part because more students are successfully tackling high-school math in middle school, and the “hazard” of a change to the state’s school grading rules.
Deputy Superintendent Jesus Jara said the district planned to “course correct” and beef up instruction in algebra 1 and geometry classes offered in its high schools.
“Overall, we’re extremely happy with the re-
sults,” he added.
Statewide, 57 percent of the more than 3,200 graded public schools earned A’s and B’s this year, up from 46 percent last year.
In Seminole County, Central Florida’s highest-performing district, 82 percent of the schools earned good grades. That figure was 49 percent in Lake, 56 percent in Orange and 53 percent in Osceola, all improvements from last year.
No traditional schools in Lake, Orange, Osceola or Seminole earned F’s in 2017, and the seven that had F’s last year all improved. Five charter schools — privately run public schools — in Orange did get failing grades this year, however.
Schools with A’s or improved grades will earn extra money from the state, while those with Fs or a string of D’s face extra state oversight and could be subject of Florida’s new “schools of hope” provision. That effort aims to lure highperforming charter schools to neighborhoods with struggling traditional ones.
Orange’s Carver Middle School, F-rated last year, got a C this year. The district is offering its largest pay incentive ever — up to $70,000 per teacher over three years — to lure talented teachers to that long-struggling school.
Rolling Hills Elementary, another F-rated campus in 2016, jumped to a B this year. “Everyone is in euphoria mode,” Rolling Hills Principal Margarete Irving said.
Extra support for teachers, many of whom were new to teaching, were among the strategies the school used to help boost student achievement this year, she said.
The F grade bothered Rolling Hills students, parents and staff. “We’re just proud,” Irving said of the improvement.
Carver math teacher Aaron Buchanan feels the same way.
”We never felt like we were an F school, and it's nice to see that reflected in our grade finally," he said.
Florida’s school grades — issued every year since 1999 — are both controversial and frequently cited. They are criticized as too narrowly dependent on state test-score data and unfair to schools that serve lots of struggling students, but they also are latched onto by parents, community leaders and real-estate agents as an easy way to gauge school quality.
That likely explains why some school staff quickly took to social media to tout their 2017 grade.
“We are proud to announce that Oviedo High School is an ‘A’ School again for the 16th year!” read one message on Twitter from the Seminole school.
“17 years an ‘A’ school, no other middle school beats that! We LOVE our Glenridge City,” read another from Glenridge Middle School in Orange.
But the Orange school district recently released its own school report cards, saying it wanted to provide more “comprehensive” information on its public schools than could be found in state grades.
Orange Superintendent Barbara Jenkins reflected that same sentiment, commending schools that did well under that system but highlighted its shortcomings, too.
“It has become clear to our community that each school’s progress cannot be represented by a single assigned letter grade,” she said in a statement.
Allison Miller, who has two children at Olympia High, agreed, saying she took the news that the school dropped to a B in stride. Her children have access to advanced classes and strong teachers, she said, and she doesn’t like that the grades are based mostly on student success on standardized tests.
“It’s really a snapshot on one day of a student’s performance and it really shouldn’t have such a great impact on teachers, students and schools,” Miller said.
The state also grades its 67 school districts. Seminole got an A this year while Lake, Orange and Osceola all earned B’s.
In Lake, which got a C last year, administrators were delighted with the improvement and with more campuses earning A’s and B’s. “I am excited that we are well on our way to becoming a destination school district,” Superintendent Diane Kornegay said in a statement.
Seminole’s only F-rated school, Pine Crest Elementary School in Sanford, got a D this year, while 26 of the district’s 62 schools earned A’s, up from 17 last year.