Jacklynn Radney, 8, flips through a book in the media center recently at Echols County’s new K-8 school facility. The Echols County School System was the only system in the area to succeed in making Adequate Yearly Progress system-wide in 2010.

Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) reports for the state of Georgia saw a decrease in the number of schools meeting the standards for 2010.

While the number of schools under needs improvement status improved — from 334 to 305 — the percentage of schools making AYP decreased eight points from 79 percent to 71 percent, according to the Georgia Department of Education.

Only one school system in the area achieved AYP system-wide.

For the fifth year in a row, the Echols County School System succeeded in making AYP system-wide.

Superintendent Tim Ragan credits the school system’s success to the hard work of teachers and staff who make sure all students’ academic needs are served.

“It shows commitment and care, not only by our teachers but our community, that academics are important,” Ragan said.

Echols County Principal Dave Rosser said the system has a variety of programs and people in place to monitor the academic needs of its students.

The teachers, he said, are meticulous in reviewing data and charting student performance throughout the year.

An after-school program, along with a graduation coach, guidance counselor and academic coach, help ensure that students aren’t falling behind, he said.

Though AYP standards will get consistently more difficult in the coming years, the system plans to continue to work hard to reach the standards, Rosser said.

Lowndes County School System

Within Lowndes County, both Lowndes High School and Hahira Middle School failed to make AYP.

Last year, Lowndes High School made AYP after the summer re-test of the Georgia High School Graduation Test.

Superintendent Dr. Steve Smith said a retest was given to a small group of Lowndes High School students over the summer. While the scores were passing, they were not high enough for the school to be considered for AYP status, Smith said.

“What happens every other year is that they raise the bar, and you have to continue to move further and further,” Smith said. “In the past, they’ve had real good test scores, but the problem is the higher scores they get the higher they are expected to get. It’s a challenge to continue to meet that with all they are required to do.”

The system closely monitors all the schools, with individual schools identifying students who have weaknesses in specific areas and working on helping them improve academically, Smith said.

The standards of AYP will be continually raised each year until 2014, when all students are expected to be scoring at grade level, Smith said.

For some of the subgroups and some students, that is not a realistic goal, he said.

Smith said school systems have been told that the federal government and Department of Education is in the process of reconfiguring educational standards that should be more realistic. That said, he nor any other educator has any idea what those standards will be at this time.

Smith said he started the year a bit disappointed about the system’s AYP results.

“But I’m not worried. Hahira Middle School and Lowndes High School do an outstanding job,” Smith said. “There are variables you have to deal with. No. 1, the scores and the bar is being raised, and No. 2, you have to look at each individual class of students that come up. Some classes are stronger than others.”

The goal of the educators and administrators is to realize these are the challenges and work with individual students to strengthen their skills, he said.

“Sometimes we make it, and sometimes we don’t,” Smith said.

Neither Hahira Middle School nor Lowndes High School fall into the AYP needs improvement category. Schools have to fail to make AYP for two consecutive years to be placed in needs improvement.

The two schools were the only Lowndes County schools out of 11 to not make AYP.

Pine Grove Middle School, beginning its second year as a school, made AYP in its inaugural year.

Valdosta City School System

Pinevale Learning Center, in its first year as a certified school, failed to meet AYP standards, joining Valdosta Middle School and Valdosta High School as the only schools in the Valdosta City School System not to make AYP.

This is the fourth year Valdosta High School has missed AYP.

Superintendent Dr. Bill Cason said regardless of the numbers presented, Valdosta High School continues to make gains.

The work to improve the performance at the high school begins in elementary school, he said.

The system is making a concerted effort to ensure that students are not entering high school with deficient skills, especially in the areas of math and reading, Cason said.

Valdosta High’s graduation rate is at 72 percent, but this year the required average was moved to 80 percent, said Scarlet Correll, interim executive director of teaching and learning.

A subgroup of students held Valdosta Middle School back from making AYP this year. Students with disabilities, a population which is large enough to be counted as a subgroup at VMS, failed to score high enough to make AYP status.

With AYP, all student populations that are large enough to be classified as a subgroup are expected to meet the standards, standards that continue to rise, Correll said.

That said, the scores of the students with disabilities subgroup at VMS saw great gains over last year’s marks, she said.

The system has installed an instructional lead teacher at Pinevale Learning Center, added more middle school staff and added social support as well as educational support to improve its academics, Correll said.

Newbern Middle School, which was looking at a fifth straight year of missing AYP, made the cut for 2010. S.L. Mason Elementary School also rebounded this year after failing to meet standards in 2009.

Southeast Elementary School came out of the needs improvement category, having made AYP in both 2009 and 2010.  

Retest scores from tests taken over the summer will not be available until October, Correll said.

Improving academics is a constant work in progress, Cason said, and the goal for the school system is to improve not just test scores but overall learning.

“I’m proud of our teachers, proud of our administrators and proud of our students, and we are headed in the right direction,” Cason said.

Adequate Yearly Progress

AYP is used to determine if schools are meeting expectations under the federal No Child Left Behind Act and consists of three parts — test participation, academic achievement, and a “second indicator.” The academic goals will continue to rise every few years toward a goal of 100 percent proficiency for all students by 2014.

Students at all academic levels and subgroups must meet the goals in all three categories in order for a school and system to meet AYP. Schools that do not make AYP for two consecutive years are placed in “needs improvement” status. For the 2010 school year, there are 305 schools in the state listed as needing improvement. These schools are required to offer options like public school choice or federally funded tutoring.

To get a closer look at the scores for each system or school, visit the Georgia Department of Education Web site at www.gadoe.org.

AYP around the area

In the Berrien County School System, Berrien Academy Performance Learning Center failed to make AYP as did Berrien Middle School. Berrien Middle School did not make AYP in 2009. Berrien High School made AYP in 2010 after failing to make the cut in 2009. Berrien Primary School has made AYP for 12 consecutive years.

Brooks County High School failed to meet AYP in 2010. All schools made AYP in 2009 after summer CRCT and Georgia High School Graduation Test results were returned.

Cook High School and Cook Middle School both failed to make AYP for 2010 as they did in 2009. Both Cook Elementary and Cook Primary schools have made AYP for 11 consecutive years.

Lanier County High School is the only school in the district to not meet AYP in 2010. The school also failed to make AYP in 2008 and 2009.